The Last Recommendation of Agent Coulson
by MaliciaStarling
Summary: Probationary Agent Lewis didn't always keep her mouth shut, didn't always follow orders & she never wore suits before a giant fire blasting robot from space landed on Main Street. Agent Coulson is solely responsible for keeping her in line. When she started to follow orders she got her first assignment. After he dies no one tells her and she's left to work with Team Science instead
1. A Visit and Five Infractions

I do not own these characters.

"Ms. Lewis" Darcy jumped halfway off her bunk even though it was painful business to move at all.  
"Agghhhh, I mean," she peering in the darkness but that voice and the suit that went with it was distinctive. "Agent Coulson, you nearly gave me a heart attack, it's after lights out."  
"I heard about your own nighttime excursions," Darcy smirked at his word choice. "Do you want to get kicked out of basic training?"

Darcy blinked at his casual tone because the question made her feel like a deer caught in the headlights. "This place, this its not for me. Cramps my style."

"Do you know why I recruited you Ms. Lewis?"

"Because I was a liability." Darcy responded trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. She was exhausted and she was getting away with not standing at attention. The lamp that Coulson stood in front of threw his features into shadow but she knew his expression would not have changed, it rarely did unless you looked hard enough. The moment stretched out into the silence and it started to make her itch. "So what are you going to do now? Pack me off and send me to prison so I can keep my mouth shut?" She wanted to say more but she knew she was in too much pain to actually keep her anger burning. More silence.  
"God what do you want with me? Why are you even still here? Can't someone kick me out? "

"Answer my questions private Lewis."

"I don't want to be here, its hard I'm tired all the time, it hurts, I don't want any of this! So yeah I wanna get kicked out, I don't want to be a G-man." She was glad that she hadn't burst into tears but she was burnt out and her muscles felt wrung out after the endless pushups she'd had to do for not standing at attention. Coulson shifted sitting on the empty chair. "What else do you want me to say?"

"I've come with the exit package. You'll be done with your basic training and after that you'll be done with SHIELD." He reached down pulling out papers from his briefcase. It gleamed bulletproof metal in the lamplight. Darcy snorted but she was afraid to say anything. "That is if you can answer one more question. Do you really want to be in the dark never knowing when alien attacks are coming?"

So he knew about the nightmares, about the way she hated the thought of handling live munitions. She thought hard then because she didn't want to cry and because...  
"I won't be any safer will I?"

"No one is safe Ms. Lewis. But you can choose, choose to help others know things before they happen or..."

Or submit to the nightmares, be afraid all the time. Even just wondering and never knowing when something on the news was a cover story or not. She stared hard at the exit package in his hands. She ventured a look up at his face, he was unflappable impenetrable. She wanted to ask him so much in this terrible barracks, the wind and rain raging outside she wanted to ask how he stayed unbowed by the cold even though she could see moisture on his face and on his shoes. He checked his watch, got up and left the exit package on her trunk with a pen.

"I'll leave these here, someone will pick them up in the morning. We are all liabilities Ms. Lewis. You can join us or you can look away." And he was gone the footsteps heard even after the door was closed. Darcy watched the papers laying down away on her locker, the lights off again she felt them taunting her.

In the morning she was awoken by someone knocking on the door, they retrieved the papers, saying only she should report to the drill sergeant or follow him.  
Darcy reported to the drill sergeant.

"Probationary Agent Lewis I count five wardrobe infractions here."  
"These suits seriously suck, I'm just trying to spruce things up." Like with the killer silk shirts she'd gotten at the thrift store. She had on a cream one that looked almost exactly like the regulation cut.  
"Did you feel the need to spruce up your BDUs? Did they also cramp your style?" Darcy was about to say something but hearing her words in Agent Coulson's mouth gave her pause.  
"BDU's are comfortable," she said for lack of anything else to say. "They're also, you know, filled with pockets!" Now she was on a roll, "They were totally comfy and great for carrying snacks and chapstick. One private at boot camp even packed a small book of poetry."  
Coulson waited patiently. "We both know I'm just going to be an office drone, I mean like what does it matter that I put some heels and a cuter top on?"  
"Do you know you're going to be an office drone?" Coulson asked as an assistant came in handing Coulson a tablet. He scrolled through the video quickly, reset it, passed it to Darcy. "Here watch this. When you're done here, Agent Sitwell will escort you back to your unit."  
"Yay movies!" she was aiming for sarcastic but as she held the tablet and pressed play, she thought, exactly what does Agent Coulson think would best be conveyed through video instead of words?  
"Please sit make yourself comfortable, unless you're alright standing." His eyes flicked down to her black pumps, really not stylish but they went with the skirt she'd managed to track down at a thrift store that she'd tried wearing today. She'd left the suit jacket alone only because the silk shirt she'd bought for the cute sweater was at the dry cleaners because of an unfortunate reaction to gun oil it might not even make it. But Coulson's comment was a challenge and she debated the merits of sitting down on his comfy looking leather couch. It might be hard to get up from the couch but her heels were... Ugh why did he have to leave her with her thoughts instead of just telling her all this?  
She sighed, looked around the room staring at the corners of the room where barely perceptible indentations there in the ceiling. "You won ok? I won't wear heels again. Ouu comfy couch."  
As she settled down into the couch she tried crossing her legs demurely it didn't work right away and she wasn't paying attention when an explosion called her attention back to the tablet. She rewound the footage to a minute before the explosion. The office drones weren't doing much just shuffling papers, working on the computers, making copies, drinking coffee... And there the explosion erupted from the coffee maker, wait no she slowed down the replay and paused it frame by frame. Somehow the explosion came from the wall and not the coffee pot.

There were no screams just whimpers, everyone reached for their guns, attended to their wounded coworkers and two people grabbed fire extinguishers. No one came to help but someone started first aid and then, gunfire. But it was like no gunfire she'd ever seen. It looked like the phosphorus tracer rounds from the old desert storm news footage that had terrified her as a kid. Except there was no Christiane Amanpour narrating or giving direction. The agents were trying to respond to one of the codes she couldn't remember yet; half of those still able rushed through exits the injured being attended to while the other half worked furiously on their computers and watched through the massive hole in the wall. It looked like the shots had slowed down for a moment and then without warning intruders streamed through the hole bringing dust and rubble and obscuring the security feed.  
The few that didn't have their guns drawn now did, even the lady on the ground who was bandaged, her face peppered with seeping wounds. They put down two intruders before someone emerged from the exit with a round grenade, they yelled something and everyone dove for cover. It was just a flash bang and everyone beat a hasty retreat into the remaining intact hallway. Once they had cleared out another real grenade was tossed into the room and got the last three intruders and the camera.

Darcy was tense, as the video ended in static. Then it kept rolling but the time stamp was different and the angle was different. It was from the hallway where the remaining workers were huddled, guns still drawn vests and helmets emerging from a hallway closet. Everyone reloaded their magazines strapped on a few more machine guns, got on the walkies and were told essentially to hold their positions. A few crawled back into the main floor and dragged some cubicle partitions and desks to plug up their hallways. Others dragged out a laptop and some phones trying to desperately to figure out what the situation was like around the building, working on maps of the small outpost and yelling instructions through the walkies. The lady that was bleeding was propped up in the hallway closet, someone was still working on her wounds but she waved them away as there was more gunfire and someone pulled out another grenade two other heavily armored agents hopped back over the barricade crouching low and investigating while cover fire was laid down for them.

It was hard to make out the spoken directions over the chaos and the narrowness of the hallway prevented much to be seen of those that had gone back over barricade after a minute.  
She was trying to dig into her boot camp experiences and found that they were doing nothing wrong until she caught the order for them to beat a hasty retreat. Some more agents had managed to strap on some vests. Only one came back over the barricade. Darcy felt her cheeks burning the tears falling, they dragged their comrade away his pants torn and revealing a gash on his leg. Three arranged themselves in formation taking turns to lay more cover fire in hopes that the other would come back, while the rest went further into the building towards the exits. Finally there was another intruder that jumped the barricade and the brave office worker fired at him as he lobbed the grenade into the hallway and behind the intruder and was out of the camera view. Just before the explosion hit Darcy caught sight of four more intruders. "You don't leave a man behind!" she yelled frustrated wiping tears away.

"Her name was Agent Stacy Johnson." it was Agent Sitwell who spoke from the doorway. "I know you can't tell from the feed, she'd just uh... she was wearing a helmet and the vest that's why you didn't know." He didn't look Darcy in the eyes, "I came back from over the barricade she didn't."

"Why?" she said before she could stop herself. He looked her in the eyes then and huffed a laugh that sounded suspiciously painful.  
"'Ours not to reason why, Ours but to do...'" he didn't finish the quote just let his voice die out. Darcy realized the footage continued and looked down rewinding it a bit. The camera angle had shifted again. The workers were backed up but she paused it. Looked up at Agent Sitwell then stood up grabbed a kleenex. He was frozen to the spot looking at the floor, she blew her nose. "Just come out when you're done watching." He closed the door again.

There wasn't much else to the footage, the office workers kept working on their tablets they went back in the direction of the hallway and then Darcy realized they were in lobby/reception area of the building. Wherever these offices were the space must have been tiny maybe even a temporary outpost. It got quiet as they launched a final bid into the hallway to watch for any more hostiles and retrieve some more supplies. They passed around rations from the supply closet everyone finished putting on armor. The bandaged woman was passing out against the wall. Fifteen more minutes and they were told that someone was coming back to pick them up after they were done dealing with whatever it was. "We've got able bodies here we can help."  
"Stay there, keep doing what you're doing, your our eyes and ears. Inspect the intruders for any clues you can find. Call out anymore information you may have."

No help was coming and when the bandaged woman came to they lied to her saying help would come soon. In the hallway there was some movement as two agents inspected the body of the intruder and dictated their findings. methodically to another who typed.

"There's nothing else to watch, but no one has edited the footage. I can take you back now." He was back, he came to her offered her a hand up. Darcy was very aware of her need to readjust her skirt and having to uncross her legs and that she did need to use his hand to rise from the couch. She kept thinking of the agents running over the barricade, Agent Sitwell had been wearing a suit in the footage but now he wore a blue SHIELD uniform the kind that people on the helicarriers wore. She was going to get one! she'd scoffed at that, when they took her measurements, thinking, when would they ever let me on the helicarrier? But on Agent Sitwell as they walked back she was very conscious of thickness of the chest area and the arms. Her heels making it a little difficult to keep up with his long stride, he had to slow down twice. Every snarky thought kept getting beat down by the little things she kept thinking about the footage and the ease everyone they passed seemed to have in their own suits and the extremely comfortable ugly shoes. Suits were the new BDUs and when you got promoted you might get the blue helicarrier uniforms or if you were put in even more danger you got the black leather like Director Fury, or Agents Barton and Romanov. And she was pretty sure Agent Coulson's was some Armani version of the suit with like bulletproof weave.  
Darcy never had another clothing infraction.


	2. Call Me Phil

Darcy was finishing up for the day, typing reports that had been spoken into cellphones and periodically checking for new emails in case she was supposed to be doing anything else (ANYTHING PLEASE!). As per usual she remembered her scheduled advanced combat training was tonight but only when her phone buzzed to remind her she was going to be late. She ran to the other side of the building arriving five minutes late and she'd skipped changing her pants.

Once there she noticed everyone was on an obstacle course being supervised by Agent Romanov who was barking orders and randomly knocking people off their feet she had entirely way too much fun doing it. Darcy groaned wishing she'd had time for another power bar, she usually fell anyways and tomorrow she just knew she was going to be covered in bruises. Still she threw herself into the course letting her hair whip behind free. At first it was fun, getting winded, she and several others were laughing when they'd fall. But the first time Agent Romanov dropped her from behind she found herself staring Agent Romanov in the face hair gripped in her hand her head tilted at an awkward angle. "Agent Lewis why didn't you tie up your hair?"

"I was late?"

"We know." Agent Barton dropped down beside Romanov said smirking. "She was the last one in by five minutes that's why she's still wearing her shoes and slacks."

"You know this is your sixth wardrobe infraction?"

"Yeah" Darcy was relieved to get her hair back. Even though Agent Romanov had had a good grip it was just was just a little sore. "Can I go change please? Agent?"

"Come with me Probationary Agent Lewis." Barton lead the way to a secluded mat in an adjoining room. "We have some different training in mind for you tonight." he said it with a smirk and produced a blindfold from his back pocket. Darcy tried not to think about how anything possibly fit in those super tight leather pants. "I'm going to blindfold you but only after you strap this knife to your, uh thigh." To his credit, noted Darcy, he didn't look at her chest or her legs, he merely was struggling to get it the tiny knife out of his quiver without damaging his arrows.

"Told you to leave it in its case." said Agent Coulson appearing behind Darcy and making her jump.

"Yeah but it didn't really you know fit in my pockets" Barton finally got both the strap and the little silicon and leather sheath free and handed it to Coulson.

"Agent Coulson, good to see you as always." Darcy was relieved, as hot as Agent Barton was she'd felt a little too unsettled after Agent Romanov to really relax not to mention she was freaking out about being blindfolded.

"You too Agent Lewis." Was that crinkling around the eyes? He really does care, she thought.

"Probationary Agent Lewis." she corrected for want of anything else to say.

"Not if this goes well." he responded. Darcy was dumbstruck, she still had a good three months of training before they gave her a permanent assignment and she wouldn't have to keep going through the different departments. From Agent Coulson that was practically a hug and grin, a fist bump... So Darcy hugged him and squealed. He let himself be accosted and Darcy recovered quickly. "Now you're going to strap this to your leg, we're going to blindfold you and you'll have to free yourself from the following situation."

"I don't like the dark." she mumbled as she sat on the floor raising her pant leg to secure the strap and make sure the silicon part stuck to her calf. Agent Coulson dropped down.

"Call me Phil."

"I'm not going to like this am I Phil?" her voice was small because she really, really hated being blindfolded. He gazed at her, his eyes squinting.

"You may not like it Darcy but it will save your life." She gulped, she'd never heard him use just her first name before or been allowed to use his first name. Now she knew she something terrible was going to happen. He took his eyes off her face, "There's a trick to it you just focus on the goal no matter what." she nodded. He quirked the tiniest of smiles but it might have just been her imagination. Coulson stood up helped her up, blindfolded her and was gone.

The exercise was terrifying. It had started with blindfolds and that was bad enough but then she and the rest of them were rounded up gassed and then when she came to she'd been tied up. She wanted to throw up, no gun, no taser, and just a tiny little knife on her leg, but she was tied up and it was going to hurt like a bitch to cut them off blindfolded. She kept thinking of Agent Coulson and all the encouragement. Because from what she knew of the man this made Darcy his legitimate favorite to be treated to an extra pep talk before this whole ordeal. Time passed slowly but she bent down to her knife concentrating on listening for her surroundings. After what seemed like forever she'd twisted the knife around and cut through the zip at her wrist with just a few cuts. Blindfold off she studied her surroundings. Half of the probationary agents were still tied up and from the looks of it passed out. There was only two out of the twenty that were free and ready. She crawled over to them because apparently her limbs were still mostly asleep.

They planned carefully, lots of strategy and what-ifs being bandied around but then as half had freed themselves she just got to work freeing the others. They were ambushed almost as soon as she'd freed one of the blindfolded agents struggling and whimpering. Everything she'd learned from boot camp was dribbling through her ears but she grabbed her knife and tried to work faster. The rest seemed to get blurry fast. All their strategizing and what-ifs had been reduced to, "keep your head and stay together as we try to get the hell out of here." well its what she kept telling those she was freeing. A few flash bangs and it was chaos again. At some point she felt herself being dragged by a masked assailant and fought tooth and nail to be released. It was dirty business getting free and avoiding capture. Soon she'd found a hiding space behind a crate and didn't see the gas canister that knocked her out. She woke up a while later and had to repeat the whole get together and plan thing before she grew frustrated and grabbed two others to get up high in the huge warehouse and taking turns scoping out the exits and entrances.

The whole escape and survive exercise plan was like herding cats so she gave up and just focused on the ones that would work with her. Another chick was better at strategizing so they listened to her. Someone else had managed to get a gun off the intruders. It only had tranqs but they started to formulate a plan. Suddenly everyone was working together and listening to herself and the other girl with the strategies. They formed four groups and tackled their respective objectives. The next time the assailants came everyone was ready. It was a dirty victory and every got injured before it was over, and it wasn't over until they'd tracked down transportation and were able to drive themselves back to SHIELD. Darcy dragged two people out of the stolen SUV when they arrived SHIELD before finding out there were still people stuck back at the warehouse, she was bad at directions so she grabbed the steadiest person who could remember where it was and they headed back. Everyone piled into the SUV they were attacked again.

"FUCK THIS IS SO NOT FAIR!" she yelled to no one in particular as she jumped from the SUV to face their attackers a stolen gun in in her hands. She took down one with a tranquilizer noticed she was out and brandished a knife at the last attacker, the attacker was a guy but he barely flinched when she opened a gash on his leg.  
"Agh!" she yelled when she was tranqued again.

She woke up in the SHIELD infirmary. Tired and exhausted she screwed her eyes shut and vowed to yell at however had left them without backup. Waking up from nightmares, soaked in sweat she screamed when she noticed someone was in the room with her.  
"Darcy, its Phil." she shook and sobbed.  
"I'm sorry, I can't do this. I can't I suck at it. That's why you keep having to give me pep talks. I'm not cut out for it. I'll never be good at it." A nurse peeked into the room and Phil waved her away.  
"Strange, I hear that you got the high marks for decision making and leadership. But you really shined for search and rescue. You went back for the remaining agents."  
Darcy took the bottle of water that rested on her bedside table. "But we sucked, like seriously we should have gotten out of there in half the time."  
"Maybe. Or perhaps the point was to keep trying and not to expect backup." His phone buzzed, he pulled it out and clicked it on. "Rest up, Agent Lewis."

They did suck at working together, they lost valuable time when they neglected to cut their comrades free, gassed twice and many were tranked twice. They got a three hour lecture as a group on what they did wrong but not until they'd been fully debriefed and filled out paperwork. When it was all over and they were dismissed from the thorough dressing down Darcy kept thinking about what Agent Coulson had told her. "Perhaps the point was to keep trying and not to expect backup."


	3. After the Invasion

Darcy was unimpressed. Sitting in an interrogation room waiting for hours and apparently forgotten she got bored. Finally a tall willowy brunette in a blue airman's outfit strode in. Darcy rose as per her training, managing a very bored salute to go with her ambivalent body language.  
"Probationary Agent Lewis, you were sent to Tromsø with Dr. Foster, instructed to remain by her side, protect her and keep her safe. Why did you disregard your orders?"

"Your name ma'am?" _I'm wearing my bored face, is it working? _thought Darcy.

"I'm the one asking the questions here Agent."

"I can see that ma'am, but as I followed my orders to the letter and you seem to be a lackey I would like to report to Agent Coulson, who incidentally is my CO." She is a formidable foe but she lacks my disdainful look, thought Darcy as she waited for the answer.

The nameless agent took a second too long to answer, and looked down at the file. "He is not available." Darcy studied the agent, bored look sweeping the room.

"I submitted my paperwork, fulfilled my orders to the letter, kept my charge safe and even helped with the aftermath once we arrived in New York.. I would like to report to my CO. Ma'am." Darcy was pushing it but she had a terrible suspicion. The taller woman made a note, closed the file, but never met Darcy's eyes. "Agent Coulson, he isn't my CO anymore is he?"

Their eyes locked, Darcy's bored look tightened.

"No." Now it was Darcy's turn to avoid the other woman's gaze. Suddenly Darcy didn't feel like pushing the other woman's buttons and she had no idea what her face was doing.  
"You will follow me." They stood and Darcy busied herself by straightening her dirty suit to regain her composure. Coulson was probably just incredibly busy with the... aftermath, she told herself. Darcy kept her stride steady even though she was blinking furiously.  
"You are to return to the reconstruction crew on the weekends until further notice for your insubordination. For the moment you are to watch on these screens for any security breaches and call out warnings, updates, as needed."  
"Yes Ma'am." Darcy was left alone with a bank of screens the painful realization that Coulson had died and she was stuck with his ghost alone in the dark. She remembered his focus swallowed her tears and pushed the grief down.

Darcy had done abbreviated training and had barely had a day to acquaint herself with the advanced surveillance tech she was now in charge of, by herself now less. Sighing she wiped her eyes, looked around for a checklist and went about checking the systems.  
Some ten hours later she looked at her watch. Everything had been managed quickly and easily but the coffee had worn off about half an hour ago and she'd been awake for 30 hours now. She was relieved by another agent and told where to go to rest in the bunker.  
When Darcy collapsed into bed she afforded herself the moment to reflect that she didn't want to work for an organization that wouldn't even tell someone... that didn't let their agents know when a CO had died. Then she fell into a fitful sleep, nightmares of the ruined Manhattan, running with Jane, and nameless threats in the shadows haunting her.

All the terrible things that could have been happened did in her dreams.

All too soon she was woken up with a phone call to her room. She showered, found a set of sweats, they fit terribly, too tight at the chest and too long in the legs. Story of my life, she thought, then a pang of sadness. She held a dim hope that Agent Coulson was alive just terribly busy. This time however her cell told her to report to the command center and to a floor that required an escort to access. Stuffing a powerbar into her mouth she rushed to meet the agent at the elevator. Running her tongue over her lips sucking on her teeth trying to make herself presentable she put her blank face on. She was taken through the security and the female agent from yesterday's debriefing (interrogation?) directed her to wait for a few minutes.

"You can go in now." she said, motioning to a glass office where Director Fury had just entered. Darcy was never nervous, blank face Lewis, you were paranoid Coulson isn't dead.

"Agent Hill has reported you for insubordination but I see here that you've managed to persuade her you were actually following orders to the letter." He gestured at a screen where they watched the previous day's interrogation. The Director focused his gaze back onto Darcy when it was over, as if staring at her would make her break. Darcy didn't care about pushing Director Fury's patience now that she knew Agent Coulson's fate.

"Permission to speak freely?"

"Permission granted."

"Agent Coulson would have understood my reasoning, it was not my intent to endanger my charge. I would not have asked to see him if I had known."

"If you had known what?" Darcy had not looked away from Fury the entire time but now she swallowed.

"About Agent Coulson's passing."

"Who told you that?"

"No one, sir. I just..." she paused looked away. Director Fury's voice dropped in volume, and his body seemed to deflate a little even out of the corner of her eye it was visible.

"Agent Coulson has fallen in the line of duty. That is not the reason you are here." Darcy looked back at the Director, her blank expression strained, only the press of her lips indicating she was in distress. Fury sat down heavy and ancient. "You are here because while you did not disobey orders you should have known better than to leave Tromsø."

"I understand sir."

"I have your evaluation here Probationary Agent Lewis. In it Agent Coulson requested you follow in his footsteps. He thought you had potential, the potential to do a thankless job, and to be put in danger and do well." Fury was bitter but the words needed to be answered.

"I'm honored he thought I had potential, he will be greatly missed." Fury looked at her again, she held his gaze, the blank expression gone replaced with a similar one except for the overly bright eyes, and strained mouth. "May I attend the funeral?"

This took Fury by surprise, and it softened his features. "There will be no personal funeral I think you can appreciate why Agent Lewis."

"Yes of course."

"As to your future with this agency, you will be up for reevaluation in two months. For the moment I would like to hear the reasoning you were going to give Agent Coulson."

"I... was going to point out that he knew about Dr. Foster's expertise with the Einstein-Rosenberg bridge and I had the distinct feeling that Dr. Foster was going to attempt escaping again. I didn't want to risk losing her. So I accompanied her and kept her safe."  
Fury looked at her sizing her up.

"You were supposed to be in training for the position of his assistant as Liaison to the Avengers. Since that's out of the picture you will return to Dr. Foster and her fellow colleagues as their assistant, however her colleagues are two of the Avengers team Tony Stark, and Dr. Bruce Banner. But we're short handed at the moment and you will continue to pitch in where needed, Drs Foster, and Banner and Stark will have to make do without you for the moment. And you still have to report to weekend duty for your insubordination."

"Yes, sir."

"You are dismissed Agent."  
Fury watched her go, she was almost as stoic in her expressions as Coulson it was true and the way she didn't show fear with Hill or himself gave him hope that she might be up for the task. Others may have taken her tendency to push buttons and her eerie way of figuring things out as intolerable but Coulson thought highly of her. Still Fury had to wonder if there was even a point to keeping her with SHIELD without Coulson to mold her properly.

The month was more grueling than training but emotionally not physically. They kept her doing lots of surveillance and clean up, everyone was tired and tense. Stims were handed out whenever they had to run ops to recover alien tech in the city and even though they mostly kept her out of harms way she needed the stims to keep watch.

At the end of the month she found herself in front of Agent Hill again. "You will report to Dr. Foster's lab she is working at Stark Tower now, you won't actually be functioning as her assistant your first and main priority is to keep watch over her, Dr. Banner and Mr. Stark." Darcy's eyes widened betraying her shock. "If they need to report to SHIELD you will escort them, you will make reports on their progress and when they are needed in the field you will accompany them with backup of course. And finally you are never to lose control of Mr. Stark."

Now Darcy lost the blank expression completely, quirking her eyebrow quizzically. Everyone knew Tony was unmanageable and here she was seven months out of college, not even finished with her SHIELD training and tasked with Tony Stark, Dr. Banner, the dormant berserker and Jane. It was enough to make Darcy want to give up and quit now.

"Any questions?"

"Does that mean I get to carry a weapon now?" _and can I pull it on Tony_ she wanted to say.

Agent Hill smiled minutely, "Yes of course, how else would you protect them?"

"That's true ma'am."

"Just remember there's a lot of paperwork to be done for discharging your weapon." Darcy heard, _try not to shoot Tony._

Now that Darcy had her marching orders she was able to move out of the bunker and given a small SHIELD sponsored apartment. It was in Manhattan though and she would finally be able to send for her things. And she'd be able to work with Jane again. She called Jane to tell her the good news, getting her clothes laid out for the next day. Jane squealed at the news and balked when Darcy said she was supposed to be in charge of all three scientists. Darcy was afraid to ask but she did anyways, "Is it that bad?"

"Well I mean he's been busy with rebuilding the Tower and hasn't really been in the lab much but SHIELD did want he him to get back to the lab. Ok don't be intimidated but the only one I've seen that can handle him is Pepper. And now she's around less and less he gets...rowdy?"

"How rowdy? Thor rowdy or like as bad as the rumors?"

"I don't know about the rumors, but he's run off several civilian assistants in the last months I've known him so... " It was true Jane would know better than to think Darcy would scare easily.

"Can I handle him?"

"Yeah you can but don't you have a gun now?"

"Yeah...?"

"Maybe you shouldn't bring it, you might be tempted to use it." she laughed nervously. Darcy frowned. First Agent Hill and now Jane. This was going to be real interesting.  
Darcy didn't technically have the clearance to read most of Dr. Banner's file. It was so redacted she mostly only had like a hand full of nouns, some articles, verbs and his childhood to go on. Jane's file revealed lots more, stuff that made Darcy assume they thought she knew already but had never bothered to wonder about much less ask her if she knew... So if that information didn't come from her then who?

Tony's file was a laundry list of his public accomplishments but it wasn't anything Darcy couldn't find on wikipedia. It mentioned little about the evaluations, just selections from them highlighting his work style. He was obsessive and prone to hermit-like isolation when inventing. But the gossip sites were filled with his womanizing ways though that had calmed down a lot since he became Iron Man. And it contained practically no information about what happened to him in Afghanistan. It was as if his file was missing entire pages.  
She sighed, they were basically sending her in blind.


	4. Bringing the Coffee

Things slow down significantly now that Darcy is working with the scientists. Also later in the chapter we meet the rest of the Avengers (no Thor yet sorry I miss him too). _

Getting to Stark Tower was easy, despite morning traffic, she stopped by to pick up Jane's usual coffee order and one of her favorite pastries a bear claw. Got a selection of things that the files had included about their morning diets and arrived at the Tower about half an hour to spare. The receptionist handed her a tablet that she had to stuff in her ugly standard issue SHIELD briefcase and told her how to use JARVIS. "Just talk, ask whatever, you've got permission to ask anything but he might not answer. And he's always listening. And here's a packet that Pepper left for you. Its not included on the tablet because its basically for your eyes only and you're supposed to use a locked cabinet in your office that's what these keys are for."

"Pepper left me instructions?"

"Yeah she figures you might last longer than his regular assistants. Oh and your biometrics are already loaded into JARVIS' system. If you have any more questions he'll be the one to ask he knows more than me." She gave a pained smile, as if to say sorry. "I'm basically just a receptionist."

"Well nice to meet you... Miss...?"

"Oh yeah I keep asking for a nameplate, I'm Lily M. Daniels, but you can call me Lily."

_That wasn't so bad_ thought Darcy, _she's really nice for someone who looks like a supermodel and probably makes triple what I make._ But then they would have to hire a supermodel to fit the outlandish lobby. There was two banks of elevators on the entire floor and only the receptionists desk. There wasn't even anywhere to sit at first glance, but she found some seating on the other side behind the elevator banks. The city was completely visible behind all the darkened floor to ceiling windows. The decor was wealthy utilitarian. The huge slabs of obsidian that made up the receptionists desk contrasted with the black marble and the elevator banks shone like white gold. The seating looked like they were granite. The whole placed would have given Darcy shivers if she hadn't lived in bunkers, barracks and tents for the last six months. Not to mention her cinder block dorm room from freshman year.

There was a modern art piece under construction outside in the courtyard in the back in the midst of remaining rubble that she noticed while walking to the elevator. "Hello Jarvis, I'm Probationary Agent Darcy Lewis I need to know where my office is. Please."

"Yes Agent Lewis we've been expecting you. And you there is no need to say please."

"There is when you don't want the AI to turn on you." she muttered.  
"I would never turn on you Agent Lewis without provocation." Darcy was not imagining the bemused tone.

She found her little office just down the short hall from the elevator bank. There were only glass walls everywhere to be seen. She waited patiently for the eye scanner and slapped her hand on the handprint. The keys were actual keys though so she supposed there would be limits to all the automation. She sat down at her desk, and skimmed the packet left by Pepper. It was filled with typed up personal notes about Tony's preferences, the layout of the lab looked like it was made in Adobe Photoshop and even a list of phone numbers to reach Pepper or Happy. She wondered why exactly Pepper hadn't relied on JARVIS to convey all this information and decided that the extra level of personalization was perfect for bonding over large distances. Finally she read the personal note that was folded up.

_Agent Darcy Lewis,_  
_I know you've heard a lot about Tony but Jane has high hopes you can work with him, not to mention Agent Coulson requested you for his PA in training so I'm pretty sure you can do this. Do not under any circumstances let Tony see this packet. Also he might have a personal assistant, I'm not sure at the moment they quit so often. Keep your key with you on the chain provided or hidden on your person. Happy is his personal driver he'll detain Tony or take him where you need him to go if you lose track of him._  
_-Pepper_

Darcy whistled in the empty office and did as instructed. She wasn't sure if it was nerves or excitement that filled her with energy and decided it didn't matter. People were giving her tools to do this job well. If she'd believed in a patron saint and angels she was pretty sure she had Coulson on her side. Either that or he had wanted to see her fall flat on her face.

She had five more minutes to read through the notes and finally marched over to Jane's desk in the lab. Then laid out the food and drinks she'd brought deciding it was easier to stay at Jane's desk to watch for the scientists coming in than to leave the stuff in the kitchenette in the back of the lab and risk missing them completely.

"You're late." Came a voice from behind a large robot. It could only be Tony Stark's voice, since she'd been watching so many youtube and news clips to get her familiarized with him.

"Nope I'm early, please to meet you I'm Probationary Agent Darcy Lewis," She pointed at her watch. "Would you like a double espresso?"

"Who told you what I drink?" interesting she thought, he didn't deny it, he could have.  
"SHIELD agent remember?" She pointed at herself and didn't miss the way he studied her head to toe. He wouldn't take the offered drink so she left it on the flat surface nearest to him. "And I've got some power bars if you're hungry."

"DARCY!" squealed Jane, and the women hugged. "Yay coffee!" Darcy smiled and she could see Tony's eyes roll as he reached for his double espresso. "Sorry I'm late I wanted to meet you in the lobby, but I got so behind."

Jane was sweet but Darcy knew she couldn't stick to a schedule like ever, she shrugged. "That's ok I was just introducing myself to Mr. Stark here. When does Dr. Banner come in?"

"He does yoga in the morning so he doesn't usually show up until ten." Jane was tearing into the bagels and was talking around a full mouth. Darcy wondered if that was Thor's fault or Tony's because Jane definitely used to have table manners. "So tell me SHIELD Agent Lewis, what's the protocol? No one tells me anything!"

"So far I'm going to help you all catch up on paperwork and get you to meetings, debriefing and generally be a Liaison for SHIELD, but only for the scientists."

"What happened to the other Agent lady?" Tony asked.

"Agent Hill was just here in the interim, she's not even supposed to be a Liaison," Darcy explained as Tony inspected the power bar selection and went back to his rolling chair.

"Yeah she was really annoyed when we never filed paperwork, said it wasn't her job to do that." Jane seemed apologetic but Darcy knew that just meant she was bummed to be scolded not that she ever had any intention of filing the paperwork. "Tony that's Bruce's!" Jane reprimanded as Tony inspected it before taking a piece of the bran muffin.

"Doesn't have his name on it." Tony took a muffin and she took it back.

"Ugh. He's just teasing Bruce, Darcy you'll see. Oops sorry Agent Lewis."

"Eh no worries we'll just do Lewis for a while."

"Cool." Jane was fidgeting with her napkin and coffee.

"Hey don't let me keep you go back to work, I'm gonna be here all the time now." Jane grinned and bounded off to read some of her screens and talk to her personal assistant.

"Why do you wear a suit and Agent Hill a blue cat suit?"

"She's field ready but also a pilot and on the helicarrier, I'm..."

"Just a suit." he finished for her.

"Among other things." _why is he asking stuff he probably already knows? He does know I have a gun right?_ Her happy grin was fading fast after Jane. _Bored or blank?_ thought Darcy. _Maybe I'll just do eager to make a good first impression._

"Phil, wore a suit, he uh... was in the field." Tony seemed to falter then, and because the reference surprised her Darcy couldn't recover from the emotional reaction or mask it easily.

"Agent Coulson was awesome, I hope to be at least half the Agent he was." Darcy answered solemnly. He studied her emotional state, she still couldn't smile or do eager at the moment, he kept doing stuff, they just sort of gave each other a moment and Darcy started to walk away then.

"Well you are pretty short." Tony finally said. Darcy was able to still her features further but she still took a deep breath. "Didn't know they made agents that small."

"Back at ya." Darcy didn't bother looking at his face because just then she heard soft footsteps enter the lab.

"Dr. Banner, hello I'm Probationary Agent Lewis, nice to meet you. May I offer you tea and a bran muffin?"

"Oh uh yeah hi, I'm sorry I already ate this morning but I can have them later."

"See Jane I totally could have eaten his muffins."

"I'm working Tony." Jane was done with the frivolity for the morning. Tony just waved dismissively and lunged at Bruce's muffin but he deftly dodged Tony's reach.

"Thank you Agent Lewis, I will save them for later, Tony, hands off. Look you have a power bars." Tony grabbed one and went back to his corner.

Darcy answered the few questions Bruce had, he was quiet not prone to smiling but friendly enough. Mostly he wanted to know what she was doing here, since he'd never really spent much time with SHIELD until the past month he was fuzzy as to the protocol.

He seemed to beat around the bush about the crazy green elephant-sized issue asking obscure questions instead, "I don't actually have very high clearance since I'm just a Probationary Agent but I could find out maybe?" Darcy was hoping to get more information out of him but he looked pretty uncomfortable and it made her uncomfortable too, until she realized he was afraid of her reaction to him, at ease Bruce look I'm smiling. "But yeah I'll be here with you all in the lab or out in the field if you're called out there." Bruce sipping his chai thoughtfully, studying her.

"Well I know Jane has been awaiting your return, it'll be nice to have you in the lab." the smile that settled on his face was small but earnest.

The morning passed slowly Darcy pulling up file after file. There were over two dozen reports outstanding and few of them had even been started. She pulled up what information she could from surveillance and notes and frustrated she got up and started with Jane. She basically attacked her during one of those times Jane was trying recharge her brain during a cleaning session. They were rare but it left her free to talk, her lab assistant seemed very efficient at data entry and machine maintenance but didn't care about doing the cleaning Darcy used to do.

Together they finished three reports and she had Jane read and sign them. "Thanks Jane I'll let you get back to your... stuff." Darcy waved in the general direction of Jane's messy desk, "hey lab assistant, help Dr. Foster clean up this mess." she loomed behind the seated assistant until he got annoyed and helped out. _This could work, _she thought. She made sure to reward him with a power bar, never too early to start positive reinforcement.

"Dr. Banner. I was wondering if you get a moment today or tomorrow if I could get you to help me with answering some questions about this paperwork?" she said catching Bruce alone.

"Uh yeah sorry I never seem to have time to finish those and uh call me Bruce." he forced himself away from his screens and rubbed his eyes. "I think now would be a good time I've been looking forward to that muffin." His smile was tired, already?!, but he sat down to eat and answer questions. Bruce was much better about starting his reports and miscellaneous paperwork for SHIELD so she managed to get through five of his and got him to read and sign them.

"Perfect, I've kept you long enough for today."

"That's fine, it's still easier having you do it when I'm eating, than trying to do them on an empty stomach." he mused.

"My nefarious plan is working!" Darcy liked the guy and was so busy flipping through the pages she forgot herself for a second and got familiar. He chuckled softly after a beat.

"Absolutely worked." and he walked away smiling.

Finally towards the end of the day she came to Tony. "I'm busy." he yelled before she'd gotten within three yards of his area. "Stay back or you'll touch something explosive!"

Darcy didn't even blink, "That's fine we can work on these tomorrow. But I was wondering before I let you go... you wouldn't happen to have some unfinished reports lying around I could work from?"

"You are too polite. Don't like it." he was distracted and mumbling.

"That's just 'cause I'm new here."sure that her eager expression was secure on her features. Tony pulled away from his robots and motioned to his desk.

"If its not on my desk its not anywhere I hate paperwork. But I guess you can start now. Follow me, I'm going my secret superhero lab."

"Lead the way." On the elevator ride down he talked to JARVIS, and looked at her sideways Darcy pretended not to notice.

She sat on a rolling desk chair as he had his robots put his suits on him and take them off. They got through two reports before Tony got annoyed. Darcy decided to push him a bit more to see if she could get him to read and sign off on them. He did but then he said exasperated. "Do you have to dress like that?"

"Yep." Darcy answered immediately.

"But you're going to be here all the time. It bothers me, hurts my eyes and clashes with... me."  
"I can make a request for civilian clothing but I've never heard anyone ask for such a request so they might just laugh."

"I'll get Pepper to ask, and I don't think they're allowed to laugh."

Darcy just looked at him shocked one because he was going to get his fiance, CEO of Stark Industries to ask (and why did it bother him that much?), and two Tony was probably right about agents not being allowed to laugh. "Dude its just a suit."

"No Pepper wears suits, you're wearing a standard issue man in black suit. Its not even cut for a woman." She resisted the urge to roll her eyes, there happens to be extra material to cover her ladies. There might be a case for sexual harassment if he'd been her boss but she doubted there was anything she could do. And now her patience was wearing thin.

"What would you even want me to wear?" she could have face palmed for leaving such an open-ended question.

"Whatever you want. Now shoo its the end of your workday soon and I'm pretty sure you have to file those, and go recharge at Headquarters mothership." Darcy left mentally shaking her head. In the elevator she frowned trying to figure out what she would wear to such a strange job. There was an email from Pepper asking her for anything she might need. Apparently she had JARVIS report to her or watched surveillance because she was thanking her for taking them breakfast. And Darcy was expected to call her back.

"I do try to get them to eat before they go down there but most of the time they don't eat until lunch. I'll get you a charge card to keep bringing them breakfast." Pepper sounded sweet and normal, like she was talking to a friend. Darcy had no idea she was going to have two bosses because she got a summons from Agent Hill to SHIELD (interrupting her evening combat training sessions geez!) asking her similar questions. It was exhausting having to answer questions just for doing PA stuff. Annoying as all get out too.

The next three days passed in the same rhythm finishing up reports over food or while they did "SCIENCE!", filing the paperwork getting acquainted with the scientists workspaces. Gradually the lab assistants started asking "Ms. Lewis" for permission to do things, if Tony yelled at them they'd go to her, if Jane couldn't communicate with them exactly what she wanted ("I said it before I don't know why its so hard to just do it again" Jane was nice but she was terrible at communicating). Or on Wednesday when Dr. Banner was trying to get one of his assistants' attention, and the idiotic thirty year old was avoiding him like the plague and smug about it. Darcy blocked his way and pointed him back to Dr. Banner's section. When that didn't work she started started shadowing the poor guy and played with her gun, pretty soon he wouldn't leave Dr. Banner's side.

The science lab was actually three floors equally divided into four vertical sections like enormous science condos but towards the middle they had a great big open space so they could talk to each other easily, the staircases were situated around them and Darcy could only guess that the natural acoustics were enhanced because they never had to repeat themselves to make themselves heard. It was a subtle detail but it made the huge three story labs feel homey-er. The glass walls were sometimes turned opaque or huge metal walls could be lowered to shield the rest of the lab from experiments. The fourth part contained her office the kitchenette, restrooms, the platform elevators and Things.

Tony snapped at Darcy on the third day though when Jane's personal assistant messed with his robots. The guy had accidentally backed up into the Dummy knocking the poor little guy over and breaking his only appendage. Darcy studied Tony and asked JARVIS discreetly how much sleep Tony had been getting, it was less than ten hours in the last three days. She asked why immediately wondering what the AI didn't know.

"Because Ms. Potts is not here in New York. I recommend switching his coffee to decaf, possibly giving him some benadryl as well."

"Won't I get in trouble?"

"I will never tell." Darcy snorted, he sounded sincere but he could be hacked. JARVIS continued, "Ms. Potts has the right to override the security protocols that would allow Tony to see any visual evidence. You may call her if you wish to confirm." There was definitely something wrong about conspiring with an AI, but Darcy did just that.

Pepper was relieved to hear that Darcy was bringing it up and that she'd arrived to the right conclusion all by herself. She gave the approval and Darcy carried it out, sprinkling two crushed benadryl's into a muffin that she'd left on Tony's desk.

Once Tony got too sleepy he didn't even make it upstairs he just crashed on the couch in the kitchen area. Darcy put a do not disturb sign on the door.

On the fourth day Darcy had to deliver Bruce and Tony to SHIELD for debriefings but it turned out to be a mission. Tony was less surly in general but he seemed suspicious of Darcy. Bruce was immersed in his tablet. Darcy was left to wait in uncomfortable chairs going through emails and schedules. Somehow the lab assistants had gotten the email that Pepper had given her at SI and now she had two inboxes to sort through. She watched anxiously whenever people went into the conference room, recognizing Agents Barton and Romanov from SHIELD Director Fury's offices and training. And then there was a tall blonde Adonis that dressed seriously retro or just like a grandpa she couldn't decide and looked vaguely familiar. Agent Hill informed her that they would be leaving directly for a mission and she would not be needed for the mission.

She was however given a letter stating that she was allowed to wear civvies so long as she was not on an official mission or coming into SHIELD headquarters. That was going to be a pain especially if she needed to carry extra clothes with her. And she needed to go shopping.

That night after working out she called Jane and asked her to come over and help her pick out some outfits that she might think worked for the lab. Jane was useless of course mostly because she still dressed in jeans and flannel shirts. Finally they decided on Darcy's old interview clothes her mom had bought her in anticipation of graduation. It was a boring beige and less comfortable than the SHIELD suit and Darcy was pissed.

At four am she got a call to report to Headquarters. Darcy dressed in her regular suit and made for SHIELD like a bat outta hell. She was directed to the infirmary where Bruce was past exhausted, she wasn't sure how he was still awake he looked so bad. Tony was giving the doctors and nurses a hard time and refusing to remove the rest of his suit. Apparently the front had been torn off by something huge and the rest of the suit was scorched needing some manual help.

Darcy called Pepper without a second thought and told her the situation. "Pass me to Tony."

"No Pepper I don't even need to be here and if I take off my suit they'll keep it nope not gonna do it." He sounded paranoid and flippant but Darcy could tell his nerves were rattled. He dropped the phone Darcy catching it simply because she was so close.

"Ask them if they'll come back to the Tower to take care of Tony there. If they won't they have my permission to sedate him." Pepper was grim.

Darcy almost couldn't respond, Tony picked up on her hesitation and started saying, "Whatever Pepper said don't do it!"

But Darcy did as Pepper wanted and the SHIELD medical personnel loaded up into the extra large ambulance with Tony and Darcy. Once back at the Tower she watched helplessly as Tony sort of spilled out of his suit with the aid of the robots, the medical personnel working quickly on him. He'd sustained two broken ribs and some serious bruising. They hooked him up to an IV and left her with him in his bedroom.  
Darcy was on the phone with Pepper most of the time narrating what was going on.

"Agent Lewis you are amazing thanks for everything. I know you've been awake this whole time probably on your feet so go ahead and leave him and call Happy to keep him company."

Darcy still had to wait until the chauffeur came. Meanwhile to her great amusement Agents Barton and Romanov had wandered in after the medical personnel left and thanked Tony for taking the brunt of the blast, in their nonchalant way despite the fact that they looked just as exhausted as he did. They weren't looking so hot either though. Both of them wearing slings and bandaged around their faces, bruises blooming. The tall blonde Adonis also arrived wearing sweats with a few day old bruises and gently admonished Tony for not following orders. Darcy tried very hard not to stare at any of them when she offered them food and drinks, (apparently there was a kitchen that JARVIS could direct her towards).

Finally Happy came to relieve her and she left Tony assuring him Pepper was up to date about his condition and was flying back to NYC. He waved her closer, dazed with medication and said, "Thanks for you know, for getting me back home. I know you work for them but, you're cool, and hey now you've naked."

"No worries Mr. Stark, you rest up I'll be downstairs with Jane for awhile. Let JARVIS know if you need anything, I'll be right up." The tall blonde Adonis stepped out of her way and gave a small nod.

"Oh hey Agent Lewis, this is Captain America. Captain America, this is the new Phil."

He held his hand out, "Ma'am a pleasure to meet you, the name is Steve Rogers."

Darcy was really glad she had training for this sort of thing. Seeing Thor without a shirt prepared you for Adonis clones calling you ma'am while wearing thin white shirts and too tight sweats.

"I'm not the new Phil, no one could fill his shoes, I'm just a Probationary Agent. But its an honor to meet you Captain Rogers." She really needed to break Tony of the habit of bringing up Agent Coulson. It only made her sad and it was harder to push down the grief. Especially when Captain America's big blue eyes in his perfect face grew round and mournful at the mention of Phil. But he nodded solemnly and was about to say something before Tony cut in.

"Go away Lewis, go babysit Jane and wrangle the lab minions but remember they're mine so don't shoot them... or no wait! Bruce! Find out about Bruce." So she called up Agent Hill and found out that Bruce had also been brought back to the Tower and she reported the news to Tony. "Ok well... JARVIS monitor Bruce's vitals and report to Lewis I'm sleepy, gonna take a nap now."

Captain America had left at some point and Darcy tried not to dwell on the fact that she'd left her apartment without makeup or a shower. As she waited for the elevators she took a look around the massive two story window that gave the apartments and elevators a strangely homey feeling thanks to the open plan, almost like any living room window complete with couches on the bottom floor and a huge balcony it seemed to lead to other apartments like Tony's and she registered absently that there was a lot of living space in the Tower. The possibility that Bruce lived here like Jane did was really high. She wondered about the rest of the team. She was vaguely aware that JARVIS was trying to get her attention when she looked away from the huge windows and got on the elevator. It was already ten am and she hadn't eaten anything. She went to get food and coffee for herself and Jane, grabbing some extra stuff to drop off wherever Bruce seemed to be staying. Jarvis told her just to leave it in his lab. Jane asked her questions but didn't seem too worried.

Darcy just sort of waited for the food and coffee to kick in before tackling any old paperwork. It was noon before she decided that the lab assistants were acting like a bunch of kids left with a substitute which was unacceptable. If Darcy took pleasure in making them write reports about what they'd done for the whole week and what they were now doing she definitely wasn't going to show it. And she may have asked Jane and JARVIS for ridiculous tasks to make them do. When five o'clock rolled around she got a summons to Tony's room. The thrill had worn off of her little power trip and now she was stuck reading all the reports she'd asked for and trying to figure out how to better utilize their time. Some people knitted other people organized.

"You look worse than I feel. Why are you even still here?" Tony was wide awake still obviously high and eating a sandwich while Happy dozed on a couch.

"Thanks Tony, and I'm supposed to be here." she said dryly, forcing her tired features into their blandest neutral expression.

"Sit." She looked around the room at the limited options. "Here Lewis sit here." he said patting the bed. She sat down at the very end of the bed. "Why do you look so crappy?"

Darcy was nearing the end of her patience with this rudeness. He obviously hated the way she looked and it was beginning to hurt her feelings. "No shower, no makeup and I may or may not have forgotten to eat like... two meals. There are you happy? You found a SHIELD agent with weaknesses. And besides you still look much worse." She was pretty sure she was blushing with anger because her face was on fire.

"Huh."

She took a deep steadying breath and got up. "I'm sorry, that was unprofessional."

"Stay Lewis I'm not done." Darcy willed her blush to fade away. "I finally seem to have struck a non-Phil related nerve. I should be the one who's sorry. I don't think about what I'm saying sometimes. Also painkillers make me weak. Fighting makes me sappy."

She surveyed him coolly, knowing her blue eyes could make people nervous. But she broke first seeing sincerity for once in his eyes, unguarded and real. "Agent Phil was... he was there after Thor landed, he recommended I join SHIELD. He... Was my mentor. You may have been close to him and I respect that I do but..." _No one told me he had died. He was just gone. _She didn't finish though and didn't want to say how mean he was being when he got on her case about her clothes and looks.

"I don't like seeing you in a suit because it reminds me you can die, like Phil. But you are so, so young. Its uh, hard to think that you might die just because you work for the wrong organization. Maybe I don't want to see you in a suit 'cause I figure it'll get rid of a target on your back. I was wrong. You're a pretty girl, er, woman. Agent. Whatever. Makes me sad to think you look exhausted because it means we're already wearing you down. I'm sorry. Really I am. You can keep wearing your suits. Don't pay attention to what I say. You're good for Bruce and Jane. And me." Darcy was looking away from Tony, out at the view of the harbor, and was trying to be angry and willing herself to stop the big fat tear that had escaped. She took a moment to breathe, she was a SHIELD agent damnit, no tears! but they kept falling anyways heedless of her inner yelling.

"Apology accepted. If that will be all, you can reach me whenever, rest up Tony." She tried to walk out quickly but found herself looking at a very awake Happy and looked down, ashamed, wiping at her tears in vain.

Just outside the door she asked Jarvis for the nearest restroom. He directed her to some bathrooms on an empty office space floor. She didn't notice Agents Barton and Romanov in the shadows just beyond the corner but they could see her sad face on the shiny surface of the elevator.

Darcy never got to share her grief. Didn't know Happy was annoyed with Tony, never knew that Agents Romanov and Barton later went and asked JARVIS for surveillance about the exchange and were granted access even though it breached security protocols.

Happy thought she was a nice kid and even seemed like she wanted to do the right thing and serve her country, trying to follow in Agent Coulson's footsteps. Pepper was sent the clip that Clint and Natasha had requested because that was part of the protocol. If JARVIS violated protocol it automatically had a check and balance letting either Pepper or Tony know. She felt terrible for the young Agent and was briefly ashamed of Tony even though it didn't surprise her. Happy thought Darcy would be an amazing personal assistant, just caring enough to get wounded and reach Tony's thorny heart and approximating Pepper's capable handling of Tony. He didn't like Tony picking on her but, saying sorry just wasn't something Tony did.

Suddenly Darcy found herself working for a secret organization where her feelings either needed to be buried and forgotten or forged into weapons like Natasha's, she wondered if maybe that was part of the training she'd skipped as she entered Headquarters' underground gym to work out and mix some sweat with the tears that still threatened.


	5. Two Mondays and More

This is a chapter is really long only because I felt it splitting it up would ruin the pace of the story. I hope you enjoy :) And I thrive on comments so please comment? Thanks for reading!

Monday rolled in after an uneventful weekend. Technically she had the weekend off but Darcy spent the majority of Saturday at the shooting range and mandatory combat training. Sunday she was called in briefly to pick up new orders. Mainly, to insinuate herself with Tony and Pepper. It made her dread Monday, instead of adding some distance after her crying on Friday she was somehow supposed to build a friendship? Sometimes this job really sucked.

Darcy debated for hours on the merits of wearing her civvies. She already knew her black suit got under Tony's skin, but maybe wearing her interview clothes would be seen as trying too hard to be normal. She'd have to do high heels and she didn't want Tony to think she was flirting with him. She opted for her suit with a comfy grey sweater to wear around the lab. She would start small and wore little makeup because she really hated putting on makeup on Mondays. It was just a little quirk, kinda like, I'm being rebellious I refuse to give up my weekend, so eff you world! Not to mention she'd rarely gotten to indulge in it since she'd started working for SHIELD.

If Tony noticed the minimal makeup he didn't act like it, he was back in the lab but he wasn't able to have caffeine with the kidney damage and he was in a terrible mood. Also she suspected he had stopped taking his painkillers. Bruce was back to normal like nothing had happened and he hadn't spent Thursday as a rage monster.

They got visits down in the lab, Pepper came in to collect Tony for lunch and lingered to talk to Darcy afterwards in her glass office. Pepper sat primly on the desk instead of the low chair that was Darcy's. She was wearing a business suit but Darcy was pretty sure it was straight from the runway, Darcy literally didn't even have the vocabulary for the type of material Pepper's suit was made out of, but it was a gorgeous red and perfectly tailored. They spoke quietly and Pepper was kind but also she had an agenda, she seemed to think since the lab assistants listened to "Ms. Lewis" maybe they could pick up the slack on Tony's usual one man R&D show. Darcy wrote down "encourage creativity on off-days"and kept taking notes handing over her lab assistant reports as well as a preliminary schedule and tasks proposal for when Tony or Bruce were gone. It was nothing much but Pepper appreciated that Tony's time was not his own, that Iron Man was now and in the near future his priority and it was sucking a lot of time, money and resources. It lifted Darcy's spirits to be included in Pepper's confidence since this was their first face to face interaction, envying Pepper's easy ability to come in and demand things (she bet Peppers had plans for world domination financially hopefully SHIELD wouldn't consider her a threat, because honestly who better to rule the world than Pepper?). Darcy may have had a slight crush on the beautiful, graceful and intelligent CEO. Tony had his power displays but Pepper had hers.

"Captain America," Darcy heard some of the assistants whispering, "someone told me he's really was the original Steve Rogers down at SHIELD a while back," when he came down to get the scientists for dinner. Darcy tried not to laugh at the gossiping assistants as they reluctantly left for the night. Steve mentioned something about getting scolded by Pepper (which was unsurprising) smiled while he waited patiently for the three scientists as Darcy helped tear Jane away from her work, Bruce was easier being a creature of habit. Tony though... she left him to Steve until she noted they were arguing.

"Tony, would you please go to dinner now?" and she quietly waited until Tony turned to the coffee maker only to be confronted with a distinct lack of coffee supplies, because Darcy had hidden them. He stiffened and turned his back to her.

"Can't I'm busy."

"I'm sure you are but I happen to know you ate half your breakfast and Pepper said you only ate half your lunch. Please go upstairs, you wouldn't want to worry Pepper would you?" He busied his hands putting things away. Darcy pulled her fuzzy sleeves over her fists and decided that comfy sweater was not warmer than her suit jacket. Tony caught her hugging herself, out of the corner of his eye, he looked at her studied the sweater. She dropped her hands self-consciously and tried again.

"Please go to dinner? Its half past six. Look you're not doing anything right now. Might as well eat something." she was weary and using her, don't scare the jumpy scientist voice.

"Go home Lewis, and get warm." Steve was waiting next to the elevator, and flashed her a relieved smile as he got into the elevator. Darcy definitely regretted not putting on more makeup, but then again she doubted he was single anyways. _Did fraternization regulations even count when it came to the Avengers? Wouldn't it be everyone's duty to be friendly to Captain America? _she mused as she grabbed her stuff from her little office and took the elevator to the lobby.

That week Darcy was finally given some more security clearance so she stayed at SHIELD reading up on the rest of the team not just the scientists, several nights in a row. She kept thinking about her orders and how vague they were. Insinuating herself with Tony and Pepper was going well enough but she didn't want to flirt or anything. Thankfully by Thursday she was saved by Jane.

Thursday was a full day at SHIELD, the whole team doing debriefings and seeing the doctors for check-ups. Darcy trailed after Tony and Bruce mostly when she wasn't being read in on the developments she did have clearance for. She even got to hang back on meetings with Fury for a bit. Agent Hill met with her while Darcy was trying to get more concrete directions on how to insinuate herself and why she needed to, Agent Hill evaded them neatly and just kept saying that they were playing a long game (Darcy guessed this was not Hill's specialty either, the woman always looked like she was ready to pull her gun, no subtlety whatsoever). There was other stuff too like going over some of the reports she was helping them with needed, like actual mission reports not just "this is what I'm building and I'm explaining it to you in simple words you don't need a Phd to understand" and miscellaneous reports that she usually did.

And because Darcy was always supposed to be aware of her surroundings she noticed two new... well superheros they could be called. To Darcy they looked like siblings maybe even twins fraternal of course brother and sister. He was six feet tall thin had silver blonde hair, his sister (Wanda? did she hear that right?) was only about 5'7 had auburn hair and they had the same piercing blue eyed stare.

Anyways Darcy could tell the team was having a hard time agreeing on anything Clint was visibly stressed out going between the twins and the rest of the team.

Just after one o'clock Tony, Bruce and Steve took a car back to the Tower and invited Darcy along. Today Darcy had stuck to her suit and caught Tony frowning slightly at her. Steve and Tony bickered about some detail or another. She immersed herself in the tablet Pepper had given her working on emails during the ride.

"Hey uh Agent Lewis I was wondering if you could join us for pizza tonight." Bruce was smiling at her and she couldn't help but return it because he had a great smile. (Was it really necessary to make all the Avengers so attractive? honestly even the rumpled scientist made her ovaries do silly things.) She knew there were reasons she couldn't possibly accept but then her stomach betrayed her and rumbled right when Steve and Tony had quieted down to hear her response.

"See you're hungry, don't deny it, Pepper and Jane will be there." Tony was looking down at his cell. "There will be like six different kinds of pizza even vegetarian."

"You don't have to..." was all Darcy could think of saying, "worry about me I've got my sandwich in my desk back in my office." She felt the flush in her cheeks rise as she realized how lame that sounded and the three men were looking at her, whatever happened to being an invisible SHIELD agent?

"Oh well, maybe next time." Bruce still had that smile and she realized how much she liked his quiet presence. When the car stopped in the underground parking garage of the Tower, she got out and trailed behind the group of men feeling for all the world like a fish out of water and she couldn't figure out why. She put on her bored look and felt like it fit wrong. _What would Phil Coulson do?_ she thought. _Would he go to pizza with them? _He wouldn't smile so easily. Coulson would have sat in the front with the driver not in the back part of the Rolls Royce thereby reducing the risk of fraternizing. The whole painful ride up in the elevator she was stuck in the back of the elevator. _Coulson would have shades,_ she thought suddenly. _He would have sunglasses and he'd be apart, I need sunglasses_.

Steve followed Tony into the lab and Bruce asked Darcy if she had any more paperwork for him to fill out. There was always more she assured him and went with him to fill it out.

"Darcy! I've been alone all day! Oh sorry Agent Lewis," Jane grinned at her, seemed to be vibrating with energy.

"Dr. Foster how many cups of coffee have you had?" Darcy had seen Jane like this before when Jane hadn't eaten enough to offset the massive amounts of caffeine she ingested.

"There was the morning venti, then... about four cups plus the venti." Jane was really adorable when she looked bashful and crazed.

"Water, Jane here have a bottle of water."

"I'm onto some really good stuff after pizza I'm gonna come back and work some more. Do you want to come for-?" Darcy gave her a death glare, "Oh what's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Darcy walked away and just went to Bruce's part of the lab to do paperwork. She just shook her head at Jane, _no I can't sorry_.

Later that night as everyone settled down Pepper asked why no one had invited Agent Lewis. "She had a sandwich, said not to worry about her." answered Tony quickly.

"I asked her, Pepper in the car, Jane asked her too. She didn't want to come." Bruce caught the look Happy gave Tony and could have sworn the man knew something. Pepper looked at Tony with a look of disappointment. Clint snorted, Jane and Steve just looked lost.

"Why not?" Nat looked impassive, the tone mild.

Now perfectly set up Clint revealed, "Tony made her cry last week."

"You did what? She's so nice." Bruce looked genuinely confused.

"She is nice, she's my best friend." Jane's voice was high and defensive.

"Look she's just a suit. No offense Jane but she knows she doesn't..." Tony looked down at his pizza. "I kept pushing her buttons, talking about Phil I guess she really looked up to him, kept picking on her clothes told her she looked like crap. Told her she's got a target on her back."

"She's just a kid, Tony." Steve's voice was quiet. Jane got up and left leaving her pizza. "Jane...?" Called out Bruce.

No one said a word after Jane left.

"I tried apologizing but it came out all wrong, I was really high on drugs." Tony was defensive and playing with his pizza. Clint turned the tv on and started opening beers. Everyone was eager to move on to the tv and Pepper got buzzed pretty quickly because she kept taking Tony's beers away.

"Hey Darce, Jane here. Call me back I wanna talk maybe get some ice cream and we can go shopping?" Jane left the voicemail and went straight back to the lab, grabbing some Poptarts that Darcy had stocked the kitchenette with.

"Is this because of last week Lewis?" Tony getting his coffee from her little cardboard tray in the morning. "Is that why you didn't come for pizza?"

"I need to maintain some distance. My conduct was unbecoming last week." Darcy felt pretty proud of that, even though it was in direct violation of her orders. "The pizza thing was automatic, I didn't really consider going."

"Yep thought so. Good to know." Now Tony could ease up on his guilt and acknowledge it had little to do with him. If he could only convince everyone else he wasn't a jerk. Then he caught himself of course he was a jerk its just he did some pretty amazing things too so people let him get away with it.

Then they got called away for some mission that they didn't even have to go to Headquarters for and Darcy got to see them leave from the Quinjet on the Tower's roof. She glimpsed the twins before it closed. Tony was impossibly grumpy after that because his ribs were still healing and he wasn't needed yet. So Darcy went back to dealing with lab assistants who never seemed to leave her alone anymore. Jane insisted they hang out and get drunk that weekend and it was the first time in a very long time that Darcy laughed with her best friend for reals and they didn't have to get back to work.

By the third Monday Darcy relaxed as much as she could on the job. She was wearing her shades more, aviators, they made her look very cool, she got them for like fifty bucks on sale. Jane was super nice to her, and she seemed to be annoyed with Tony all the time, Bruce kept being really nice to Darcy still there was a weird formality to their dealings. Tony was still keeping his distance and Darcy found herself looking for things to do after having finished all the paperwork and the lab assistants were leaving her alone for once. She busied herself with studying the teams profiles, wondering when the twins would be added to the roster of the Avenger profiles. She did that until the lab assistants started queuing up to ask her things and so this was her life, not as a SHIELD agent but as middle management of a lab and she just so happened to wrangle three of the worlds' most impressive geniuses.

Wednesday she wore her hair up in a low bun and got ready for early morning meetings at SHIELD. After a few hours of trailing Bruce, Steve and Tony at SHIELD they were on their way back to the Tower for a late lunch and Darcy remembered at the last moment to sit in the front seat with Happy. She was watching the road checking for anyone that looked suspicious (she'd gotten the sense from one of the briefings that Wanda and Pietro had some enemies and people would be looking for them and the rest of the team, of course she didn't have enough clearance to know what that entailed but whatever). SHIELD training had made her paranoid but she didn't mind, there was a certain car accident just two cars ahead of them that looked odd. Something clicked in her mind and her training kicked in, she reached for her weapon called up SHIELD and requested back up.

"Get down everyone now, Happy get up onto the sidewalk reverse ten feet and head into the alley." as the words were coming out of her mouth four men descended on the Rolls Royce from the car accident, pointing guns, "Go, go, NOW!"

Happy floored the gas the car bucking up onto the sidewalk, following her instructions. The four men started shooting at the car.

"Bulletproof windows Lewis, we'll be fine." Tony assured them. Bruce was trying to breathe deeply and concentrate on not hulking out in the enclosed space. Steve tugged them down to the floor anyways.

"Do you have your suit?" Darcy asked Tony.

"Nope." he answered grimly. The car was in the alley way and time Darcy was trying to focus on Bruce and the cars trailing them.

"ETA?" Asked Steve.

"Five minutes on the outside."

"Happy, merge when we get out of the alley." Darcy was aiming her gun at the cars that were following them down the narrow alley. "Captain take my extra gun." She tossed it to Steve who clicked off the safety and sat up just enough to look through the gap ahead

"They're gaining brace for impact," ordered Darcy.

The car burst out of the alley swerved into traffic but their pursuers had gained on them and hit the passenger side of the car.

"Focus on me Bruce don't Hulk out we're gonna be just fine." Darcy sounded like someone else, someone cool and steady even though she was pretty sure she was going to throw up later. Tony was focused on directing his suit to follow them through the traffic, Steve was facing forward Darcy still on her knees in her seat looking towards the back.

"I'm gonna shoot their tires out, Happy steady as she goes." she took a deep breath and then got distracted to protest Steve's movements as he leaned out the side window practically his whole torso out and shot their tires out. Their pursuers crashed and made a huge collision behind them and Steve was back in the car. Darcy ventured looking ahead and felt a sickening sense of upward movement. The car was being lifted up over the traffic.

"Captain make a hole please." she was yelling now because the explosions down below had been loud, too loud, explosives maybe. He obliged punching twice and peeled back a good section of the roof.

"My suit is here, Steve you gotta toss me out! It won't fit through this hole" Steve looked grim but spotted the suit.

"We're too low you'll fall like a stone."

Darcy spotted a man holding himself still in the air his hand outstretched directing their car. "Do it Steve!" Steve shook his head leaned back and kicked his door open, but before Tony had a clear exit the door was jammed back into its hole. Then a terrible roar overwhelmed the inhabitants of the car and suddenly the Bruce-Hulk hybrid burst out of the roof Tony and Steve only slightly squashed into the side of the car. Darcy watched in awe as Hulk continued to grow in size as he reached the ground now some hundred feet down. The Iron Man suit was still trailing behind and for a second Tony made to jump out and wait for his suit to catch him when they heard a faint crunch of metal, since it wasn't the car she glanced in the mirror and saw the suit was nowhere to be seen.

"Damnit!" Tony was angry and punched the back of Darcy's seat. Happy looked a bit faint but gestured that she should put her seatbelt on.

"So Magneto has a beef with you?" Darcy asked Tony trying to get his attention.

"This makes no sense, he isn't even supposed to know yet!" Steve nodded agreeing with Tony.

Soon though nearing the docks and though Hulk had been catching up to them bounding on buildings, running and getting closer all the time the water might be a problem. Darcy noted a distant silvery and blue blur coming closer to the Hulk, but she concentrated on Hulks roars a comforting sound hoping that whatever was catching up to the Hulk couldn't match him. Darcy spotted SHIELD agents chasing down the Hulk in black SUV's still too far to help the four in the car midair and suddenly over the docks, and then the open water And then the car dropped at first it seemed uncontrolled but they landed with a soft thump on an old rusted ship. Happy reached over and removed two guns handing one to Tony. "Protect Tony, no matter what!" she hissed at Happy.

"On my three everyone jump out if we're not in the car then he can't control us. One, two," Steve counted down, They were armed and they burst out of the car guns at the ready, "three!"

Magneto was flying away already, and they watched as the Hulk paced up and down on the docks. He ran away then ran back out towards the water and dove into the river making for the ship. The silver and blue blur had caught up to him and Darcy didn't see anymore as she saw canister land in their midst and Darcy being closest to it yelled, "get back!" grabbed it and tried to throw it out over into the river.

Then there was nothing.

There was pain, and she was bound, clothes torn with a sore head but she was relieved she'd made a habit of wearing her contacts since the last hostage scenario. She came to in a massive cargo hold. She was separate from several dozen women her weapon gone and she was tied up. "You may not like the blindfold but one day it may save your life." Phil had said, and for once she was glad the man had put her through that ordeal. It was obvious to her that the Avengers and Happy were long gone. They had forgotten to check her for her cellphone which was securely in her bra (thank god she'd stowed it there before the ship), relieved at least that someone would know where she was. The cargo hold had some huge ten by ten crates, it stunk of sweat and piss, and faintly of vomit. Darcy bit back the bile in her throat and concentrated on her checklists exits, friendlies, resources, physical state. She tried talking to the women in the hold but none spoke English. Most were Russian or eastern european. Some looked asian. And they hadn't found her knife in her boots, she worked on the zip ties for what seemed like hours cutting her own skin only three times. She was tired from the effort and the lingering effects of the knock out gas and quietly stalked in the edges of the shadows, hoping the girls wouldn't rat her out.

She located all the exits none of which were accessible the roof being at least ten feet above the crates, the only door with stairs bolted on the outside. Every so often a girl would see her and cry out thinking Darcy was going to hurt her, and Darcy would have to patiently calm her down by approaching her showing the frightened girl her own broken zip tie. Two tried to get Darcy to help them and so she did, leaning down and cutting them free. They were sobbing gratefully their scantily clad bodies filthy with sweat and other fluids she didn't want to think about. When they realized she still had to wait with them they sagged and the other girls if they cared where they lay made no effort to be free. Darcy was dispirited, sore and bruised collapsed back in her spot and trying her cellphones' reception again, thinking only that of course it would be her luck to be stuck in a cargo hold that was acting like a Faraday cage rendering her useless cellphone.

What seemed like hours passed and someone finally came down to untie her and take her to the head, (nothing more than a overfull porta-potty). She'd been dozing off but she managed to stab them, disarm them and left with their guns, tucked one in her waistband, cocked the other. She used some zip ties she found on their pockets, didn't wait to see if the lackeys were dead just and ran up the stairs to see what else she found. As she left she heard impacts of fists on flesh and before she opened the door she saw the two girls she'd freed pummeling the lackeys. They wouldn't be coming after Darcy anytime soon.

She emerged into a living room area with a couch and a table some chairs. To the far end she could see a huge bodyguard was sitting next to his boss just outside the area looking out into the sea as the sun went down. Darcy scoped the area for a place to hide and for something to give her an indication of where she might be. She gave up the hope she was still on the same ship, this one was not nearly as rusted as the ship she'd landed on with the team and from what little she could see out of the windows and doorways the harbor looked different. _What if they're leaving for good? _she thought terrified, but it lit a fire under her and she had new determination.

Darcy finally found an unattended computer in a room to her right and drew closer, she closed the door and tried the computer. Everything was set for russian but she was able to zoom out on the map and determine that she was in fact still in the New York harbor but completely not where she'd expected to be. She pulled out her cellphone and very quietly placed a call to SHIELD. The call was cut off as her battery died, shit, ok now next item on the list, looking for a way out. Darcy tried to remember her windows settings and started clicking on anything she thought remotely looked like language settings. It took her a long two minutes when she could feel and hear movement outside. the ship groaning as the engines picked up.

Once she switched over the computer to english she found the surveillance feeds, checked how many people were on board, it was almost seven o'clock and even managed to find out she'd only been here for less than six daylight wouldn't hold out forever so she looked around the room for a map of the ship. Maybe if she found a way to distract everyone from the exits then she could make a run for it? There was a good chance she could swim to the pier unscathed the ship wasn't actually in port yet but there was no telling at the moment if they were coming or going. Worse yet if she made it off there was all those women on the ship, their mostly naked and malnourished forms too tired even to talk would not be able to make it off the ship with her. If she left they might die before she could get them help. Darcy made a quick decision, find the engine room or one of the rooms surrounding it and start taking out the power grid which would be a diversion and leave them sitting ducks and then start taking out the crew. There was only a dozen and she'd taken two guns should be easy right? That is if she really did have ten shots to a magazine. She double checked and looked for anything she might need, found some keys and took them.

The way to the engine room corridors to the engine room were mostly empty but she knew from the surveillance that there were at least three people in the engine room. She found what looked like a fuse boxes and wires and just started turning everything off and then climbed up the walls to the super hot piping using the remains of her jacket to protect her hands. She crawled along getting closer and closer to the engine room she worked her little knife furiously on any wires she found on the walls below her.

Eventually almost all the power had been cut and there were shouts coming closer, Darcy was hiding above the deep red of the emergency lights hopefully hiding her as she was sitting on some very hot piping and sweating profusely. The ship was so noisy with the alarm blaring that the first three men she shot didn't stir any suspicions. Crawling around she watched more men approaching from either side shouting and cursing some drunk other and none of them looking up. She leveled her gun and took out two more before they really noticed her up in the piping. The last three in the hallway tried shooting at her and busted some piping near her, she felt hot steam burn through her pant leg and bit back screams but was rattled enough to drop down in a heap. Darcy counted the downed men. Five down, plus the two in the hold she'd tied up. _Seven down, five more to go_ she thought. _Focus Lewis,_ the adrenaline rush she'd been running on was fading withering in the face of her pain and exhaustion. Something was wrong, there were footsteps or shouts, no more men were coming and now she she crawled further towards the engine room and saw only three men, took her shots but only got one with a headshot, nicked another in the arm and got the third in the shoulder. But they were after her now and ran hard towards. She ran back the burn on her leg pulling skin and she was having trouble focusing from the pain. Stopped and dropped to a low crouch hiding behind some crates where she knew the leader and his guard would but she was _out in the open damnit_, but they were nowhere to be seen. She moved slowly checked the doors next to the bridge and the computer room she'd been in. Checking her six every once and awhile managed to avoid getting shot once and took out the one she'd nicked. _Three only three more_.

Taking a deep breath she waited until the last one to follow her caught up, the arm she'd shot was useless to him and she shot him again. She had seen his face before she shot him his hand shaking as he took aim to shoot her. She was shaken now that it was hitting her how many she'd killed. Long seconds passed as the pain over took those thoughts and she could only think how much the other girls down there had endured. _These are bad men, they hurt those women down there, we have to survive this_.

Unbidden Phil's voice came to her, "the point was not to expect back up," his eyes had been sad but kind. That was all Darcy needed.

Refocusing for the task at hand she ran through the checklist, she had checked everywhere they weren't topside in the open or behind any closed leader and the bodyguard had to behind the last two doors but one led to the hold and the other didn't. So Darcy started counting the seconds, after fifteen seconds she opened the door and shot the body guard in the stomach. Except her heart stopping she realized the leader was not with him, she went to check the camera feeds except most of the lights were out. Then she found them the last lackey and the boss were down in the cargo hold with the women. Taking a deep breath she headed down there as quietly as possible. The remaining lackey was holding a girl to his chest, gun at her temple. The leader was pointing a gun at another girl that was on her knees.

"Put gun down or girls die." Said the leader, he was a thin man with tattoos on his neck his silk shirt gleaming in the red emergency lights. Darcy made to put the gun down and instead shot the leader. The lackey shot the woman and she slumped to the floor. Darcy took another shot as the lackey aimed at her, but she felt an impact on her side and was thrown back a few steps. There was laughing from the leader and screams from the girls and incredibly the leader was not dead, she'd only shot him in the stomach. Darcy raised her gun this time shooting him in the leg, he cried out shot at her again grazing her thigh then growing frustrated he shot at the girl who was still on her knees. Darcy shot him in the chest a split second late just as the girls body fell forward. She scrambled over to check the girl, but she was smiling faintly "Thank you."

"I didn't save you, I'm so sorry." The girls eyes went glassy and she stopped breathing. Darcy was shaking now, some part of her registering that she was going into shock. _The girls, who will come get the girls? _she thought looking at the other girls where they were huddled in a corner, some crying others babbling, a few thanking her and crawling closer and Darcy was fighting her eyelids. Everything was moving wrong time itself stopped making sense. Putting her hand to her wound she felt the beginnings of that pain. Time was slipping past her and she thought vaguely of looking for a phone some of the other girls finally getting close enough to help move the bodies to look for a cellphone. Darcy herself was distracted by something that was coming closer an airplane or boat the noise deafening in the silent ship. Suddenly something rocked the ship and Iron Man was somehow in the hold, _maybe he got in through that hole in ship _she thought dazed _it wasn't there before_, then Iron Man pointed out his hand out in the darkness the repulsor light blinding and dropped Captain America next to him.

"Here" croaked Darcy. "I'm over here..." she was losing consciousness but she was relieved as Iron Man came closer inspected her briefly, then picked her up pain flaring as he did. They were rising through the newly made hole in the ship. "What took you guys so long." she said. Captain was saying something down below and in the last of the evening light Darcy watched as they flew further away from the ship, getting closer to the distant city. She was desperately cold and she wasn't going to make it, somehow that was ok.

Tony opened the helmet, "hold on Lewis we're gonna get you some help." She wanted to say something but everything got jumbled up, the pain was ebbing away and that was bad but she couldn't remember why anymore.

There were flashes of fluorescent lights, she was laid down her side and leg was on fire, there were doctors and nurses, shouting so much noise. Then darkness.


	6. Morphine

Thanks for the lovely comments, you guys totally make this worthwhile! If I don't answer immediately its because I'm trying to get this baby edited and posted :)

* * *

She was conscious again but Darcy couldn't open her eyelids. She had to ask about something, but her mouth was dry and it hurt but she concentrated and managed, "The girls... in the ship."

"They're fine, in the hospital being taken care of, rest Agent Lewis." Sounded like Tony, she nodded.

The next time Darcy opened her eyes Jane was sitting in a chair next to her working on a laptop. Bruce was pacing behind her, "hey aren't you all supposed to be in the lab?" it took her forever to say so they looked up at her, surprised and Jane was standing and dropping the laptop, but Bruce caught it all before Darcy had finished talking.

"Darcy we can't work without you there, who's gonna get us coffee?" Jane was smiling but she was blurry, gently Jane put Darcy's glasses on.

"Mmm coffee, want please." Darcy said smiling at Jane.

"Sorry sweetie no coffee for you," Jane was holding her hand, Bruce waving at people from the doorway. Tony came in talking to someone in his ear with a nurse trailing him.

"Thanks for you know, saving me." Darcy wasn't trying for nonchalance she genuinely was having trouble talking.

"No worries, I'm uh just sorry it took so long." Tony couldn't really meet her eyes and was looking at the floor, Bruce was nudging him closer. "You could have gotten time off from us without all the bad guy killing, bad assery, and getting shot you know." he said quietly.

"How many?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. Bruce looked annoyed with Tony, he glanced at Jane. "Nothing I said nothing."

"How many. did. I. kill." Darcy was still hazy but she could remember them now, the gun, the recoil, few of the faces though. "Tony? Bruce?"

"Don't think about that Darcy, shh." Jane didn't look shocked, she was just soothing. Darcy was having trouble breathing, the violence she'd perpetuated almost choking her. Bruce was talking to the nurse and they called for help, another nurse came injected something in the IV.

"I killed people Jane." it came out raw, tinged with hysteria and they were looking at her, but Jane was holding her hand, sitting on the bed with her the perfectly steadfast friend. Darcy let sleep take her.

The next time she woke up Jane was wearing different clothes, "Hey Darce." she smiled and Darcy felt gnawing pain in her stomach. She felt much more awake now and mentioned the gnawing pain.

"Do you want something to eat? They just have to take out your feeding tube. You've been out four days, its Saturday." A nurse came in and asked a bunch of questions as she changed Darcy's dressings and bandages. Darcy tried just sitting through it but she was in tears everything hurt so bad. They taught her how to use the morphine and she felt a some relief. The nurse had to call for some backup and they extubated her, it hurt like a bitch. She coughed and the impact felt like someone was jumping up and down on her chest and stabbing her at the same time. They told her she'd be able to eat soon but first liquids.

Jane helped her drink from a straw, kept talking to her the whole time, she had Darcy's iPod and she'd gone to pick up some makeup from her apartment, and Stitch. Offering to stop by and pick up anything else she might need. There were flowers everywhere in the room, in yellows, purples, whites and blues. She wondered who the flowers were from but didn't ask. And the suite it self was impeccably decorated, more like an Apple store version of a hospital but with muted lighting and a soft royal blue accent wall that held the bathroom. Then there was the furniture, a thick plexiglass table that could seat four and a dark red love seat that had apparently converted into Jane's bed the night before, plus two armchairs. Eventually she figured out it looked really strange because she was sure she was in a private suite, the kind they used for rich people, since it was as almost as big as her apartment. Hell even the curtain looked like white taffeta which really? Freaking overkill is what it was. Besides wasn't she supposed to be at SHIELD? But these all these thoughts took less time than a commercial break.

"Jane, thank you, for everything." Darcy managed, wondering just how long Jane had been here and pretty damn grateful she had such an awesome friend. Jane might suck at mingling during social events but she excelled at whatever she put her mind to. Briefly Darcy wondered if there was a book somewhere where Jane had learned to do all this.

"Darcy you don't have to say-" Jane's smile wavered and she looked away. "It was touch and go there for awhile they kept saying you'd lost a lot of blood, that-" she looked at Darcy again eyes full of tears. "You're my best friend Darcy Lewis, there's nowhere else for me to be. Now do you want to watch a movie?"

Darcy nodded squeezing Stitch, she picked You've Got Mail and fell asleep within the first half hour. She could hear voices, Jane was talking to the nurse about washing Darcy's hair, maybe putting on something to cover her chest better. _Jane knows me too well._ The few times she'd looked down there was a distinct chance her boobs had been pushed up to her chin from all the bandages and dressings. They probably didn't want the boobs getting in the way of the bandages for the injury she thought absently.. It would have been amusing if the gown wasn't so low and see through.

She opened her eyes and watched Jane as she pestered the nurses. It was nice to have someone fussing over her, like, well like a mom. It made her feel safe. The doctors said she'd broken three ribs, the first bullet had nicked her kidney, torn through her liver, a burnt leg (mostly the calf and shin on her right leg) and she'd been lucky to sweat because most of the tear gas had washed away. The second bullet had torn cleanly through her leg about an inch to deep into the quadricep to be considered just a grazing but that had been mostly easy to sew up even if it would take a while to heal and it might need some physical therapy while she was still in the hospital.

Surgery had apparently taken upwards of eight hours because of all the bone fragments but her right leg would probably need skin grafts. Jane held her hand the whole time and hugged Darcy as she sobbed the first time seeing her burnt leg. It was easy to pretend that she wasn't broken when she was high on morphine the intense pain reduced to a low thrumming pressure but the recovery time was going to be upwards of a month. Even then it would take awhile for her scars and wounds to stop hurting.

After the doctors left, it was time to "wash" her hair with dry shampoo. Darcy was tired of crying she asked Jane for her iPod. There was even a fancy radio iPod stereo dock on the nightstand so Darcy made a quick playlist and had Jane hook it up. Jane was fidgety as the music started and Darcy tested her lung capacity, experimenting with breathing testing her limits. _Singing should be like exercising right?_

"Hospital Beds?" Jane was rolling her eyes.

"Hey I got shot, my room, my music." The playlist consisted of Hospital Beds at least four times in a row and by the second time she had the lyrics memorized singing along to the song as loudly as she could. By the four time Jane was singing along with Darcy dancing around, the both of them using big yellow roses as a microphones. It was exhausting but it was cathartic. Also it was around almost midnight and they watched some more of You've Got Mail.

In the morning Darcy felt better emotionally, even stayed awake for hours this time, it seemed like everyone visited her, with the excuse that it was Sunday and no one had plans to do anything else. She asked Jane to get her a hair tie and pulled it all back in a ponytail When she fell asleep during their visits (she had to stop feeling embarrassed she kept falling asleep every few hours for like an hour) they would be outside waiting somewhere. It struck Darcy as odd to see them in jeans and regular clothes. Natasha looked downright stunning in jeans and a black t-shirt so maybe they didn't look exactly normal in regular clothes, it was still weird.

Darcy was grateful they weren't always around when she woke up because the first time she woke up from her nap (around noon) she woke up with strangled screams in her throat, Jane reassuring her, "Darcy you're ok, you're safe now, you're in a hospital," crawling into bed holding Darcy around the shoulders then the nurse came in to give her another sedative but a milder one so she was still awake. Natasha was the first one in after that and she handed them tissues, settling in an armchair watching tv like it was no big deal. When Darcy was quiet for a while Natasha asked if the guys could come back in, Darcy nodded she was really high and Natasha was so nice and she didn't look scary at all. Then Natasha grinned and Jane whispered, "Sweetie you're saying this out loud and we can hear you."

"Ohhh, ok, sorry Natasha, can I call you Natasha? Do I still have to call you Agent Romanoff?" The rest of the team came in then, Steve, Tony, Bruce and Clint. "Sure you can call me Natasha, if I can call you Darcy?"

Darcy thought about this, "I think Phil would approve, because of, you know, hospital." she remembered then the last time she'd seen him in person, sitting next to her hospital bed. Her injuries hadn't been nearly as severe, just some heavy bruising and a mild concussion and loads of tranquilizers. Darcy was short and lots of tranques in a small body does lingering after-effecty things apparently. Anyways Phil would approve of using first names now. She missed Phil, missed his face, 'cause he was never scared and because he'd taught her so much, and he cared. He was somehow why being in the suit mattered at all. That was just over two months ago she thinks, and now she's still alive and he's dead and it still hurt like a bitch, worse than getting shot. Damnit now her face was wet, a little, stupid tears, Agents don't cry, but that's why she's still a Probationary Agent. Everyone was looking at her with sad eyes, red rimmed in some cases. Jane was still on the bed and she was sniffling, Darcy asked quietly, "I said all that out loud again, didn't I?"

Tony came forward, "Its ok Darcy, we miss him too."

* * *

I didn't include the lyrics to Hospital Beds (by the Cold War Kids) but its a real song.


	7. Nightmares and Telecommuting

Sorry for the wait, I had the flu and I was taking care of others with the flu. Also this chapter is SO VERY FLUFFY. Sorry.

* * *

Again Darcy woke screaming, nightmares of killing men and being thrown back into the hold until she'd been as broken and hopeless as the rest of the girls. In her nightmares the burns weren't an accident they were done to her on purpose for trying to escape. Jane hugged her and comforted her trying to get Darcy to go back to sleep but by six Darcy gave up going back to sleep.

It was disgustingly early on yet another Monday (only the fourth since she'd started working at the Tower) and Darcy found herself alone for the first time. She'd insisted Jane leave her to get some new clothes some decent food, not to mention check up on her abandoned lab assistants.

"It was a June Wednesday, during the first week of summer, beautiful in New York, the early afternoon a balmy eighty degrees," said the news anchor, "when Stark Tower was attacked by Magneto, Pyro and various unnamed attackers some call the Brotherhood of Mutants. We had reports of Hulk sightings down by the docks around the Hudson and it looked like the big green guy had gotten startled by a series of car accidents. Now we are starting to piece together what may have happened."

They went on to show snapshots and shaky videos of the Bentley in the air being controlled by Magneto and the Hulk chasing after it. "Reports of the Hulk chasing after a car are corroborated with eyewitness accounts and cellphone video of the Hulk in the water returning from a ship with three men. We have yet to positively identify them but soon after the Hulk was accompanied by Black Widow and Hawkeye at Stark Tower where Magneto was attacking. Two new allies were at the scene, a woman who calls herself the Scarlet Witch and another who calls himself Quicksilver. They battled Magneto alongside the reduced Avengers team. Our audience will remember that Thor the god of Thunder has not been seen since the events in Manhattan almost two months ago. Captain America arrived on the scene about an hour after the Hulk and they were finally joined by Iron Man who arrived for the clean up."

"Yes Charlie, it took two hours before Iron Man emerged on the scene and it is generally believed that he was one of those rescued from a ship where the Bentley had been deposited by Magneto. We have tried to contact Tony Stark about the events and he can confirm that he was indeed incapacitated but there have been no further details nor confirmation from his camp as to whether or not the other two men the Hulk rescued were indeed Happy Hogan his chauffeur and Captain America in his civilian clothes."

"Indeed it has been very difficult to pin down the elusive Captain America. Some say it really is Captain Steven Rogers from the old WWII propaganda films who was credited with taking down the head of Hydra Johann Schmidt."

Darcy was trying valiantly to stay awake to finish the news piece. Her tablet on the bed forgotten along with the emails that numbered into the hundreds but sleep pulled her down.

She was awakened by nurses who insisted she was strong enough to have a sponge bath and have her hair shampooed. By nine in the morning she was clean, sore and lonely. Which was convenient because her first visitor of the new week was Steve in his old man pants (really someone needed to dress him). He was trying valiantly not to look down past her eyes and it amused her to no end the way he blushed. Then Darcy noticed how her gown had fallen open to reveal her gauze wrapped chest, curse the nurses they forgot to double up her gowns! She would have blushed if she'd had enough blood.

They chatted for awhile Steve telling her Tony and Bruce were worried sick during the surgery and after when they were waiting for Darcy to wake up. That the recovered girls were being taken care of, they spoke highly of her. Natasha had pitched in to interrogate the men that survived, and helped acclimate the women. The men talked about Darcy like she was a ghost above them unseen raining down bullets. "Clint was pretty impressed, Natasha too."

"Oh that, well I didn't get to see the big fight with Magneto." she grinned weakly. "It looked serious, I guess he was mad about the Maximoff twins defecting huh?"

Steve had this adorable little frown, "Oh so you saw the news. I thought we weren't... I guess no one told you. Magneto came after us because he'd lost two of his best." He paused, "I'm sorry it took us so long to get to you."

"Oh come on Cap, you had a much bigger problem on your hands. 'Sides I handled myself right? I was good, a little too good ." Darcy was trying her neutral expression at the end as she thought of all the killing she'd done, but her tone betrayed her, "Do you know how many I killed?"

"They were bad guys Lewis." that he used her last name meant he was pulling rank. She appreciated that he thought he knew better but still, annoying.

"Please tell me." she asked politely. Steve studied her face, took in her white knuckled hands fisted on the covers.

"Eight, most died from bleeding out though. I know you tried not to kill them." He'd stepped closer but Darcy couldn't meet his eyes. _Maybe he did know better, _she thought, _he'd fought in WWII after all._ Then Steve said firmly, "You had no choice."

"There were ten. The two women, I didn't- I could have put my weapon down." she was resolutely looking out the window to her left, Steve stood on the right side of her bed.

"Agent Lewis, have you ever been in war or battle?"

"No."

"Well here's the thing about war, there are tactical options. Thats a cool way of saying, kill a few to save the many. If you had put down your weapon they might have killed you, hell you almost died." He took another step closer, and a deep breath. "They could have killed the rest of the women. There were forty women in that hold. Only two died. You got rid of the bad guys, those women are free now because of you, what more could you have done?"

Darcy looked up at Steve, but he was looking at her like a commanding officer now. Still she shook her head. "There had to be another way, I just, didn't see it."

"You saved thirty-eight women Agent Lewis. You did it single-handedly with no battlefield experience whatsoever. You are a hero." his kind blue eyes were so sincere and brave, but they'd seen things too. Darcy couldn't help but hold on to that like a drowning woman clinging to a lifesaver. "I was there Agent Lewis, to see you fall after the cannister was thrown. You tried saving us even though we're all bigger and stronger than you. And for your trouble you were packed into a slave ship. The Hulk saved us got us out of there while we were knocked out. I saw them drag you away unconscious but you made it back and not just anyone can do that." Darcy was grateful for the words but then he kept going, "You've got heart kid, it hurts and thats a good thing."

There was a long moment when Darcy felt the tears threatening and asked without meaning to, "Will it stop? Hurting?" Steve looked away quickly then.

"I don't know."

There was a knock on the door and a nurse came in with Natasha and Clint. "We've gotten clearance to do your debrief here, if you're up to it."

Darcy wiped at her eyes, the nurse glared at the two agents and at Steve, she was unhappy but all she said was, "You get tired you press this little button and I'll throw them out."

"That's ok, I can do it now. Might as well get this out of the way." she tried sitting up straighter, the nurse fixing her pillow and Darcy holding back the whimpers of pain. Natasha and Clint set down a tiny digital recorder, a camera on a tripod and Steve bowed out.

They asked her to tell the whole tale from the beginning starting with the car accident and the ambush. Then they asked her to repeat certain parts. Clint did most of the questions his usual jovial manner exchanged for a easy precision that would have made Agent Coulson proud. They let Jane come in and help Darcy drink some juice. Natasha wrote down some things, asked things a different way. Darcy held off on the morphine the entire time. The nurse came back after two hours and asked her why she wasn't using the morphine.

"I'm busy." was all she answered, the nurse glared at the readings on the machine. "I'm fine thank you."

It took another hour before they packed up. Natasha turned around, wearing an apologetic smile, "next time will be a proper visit not just a debriefing ok?" at the time Darcy had no way of knowing that this was the equivalent of a hug and tears from Natasha.

Darcy smiled, "I'm just glad it wasn't Fury." Clint shuddered as if to say yeah no kidding.

"Well rest up, Agent Lewis."

Jane came back in complaining about everyone bugging poor Darcy with work stuff. Darcy let her fuss while she ate the most delicious pudding known to humankind, after all it was her first solid(ish) food in five days and it was CHOCOLATE. That evening Pepper came by, Darcy was glad that Jane had asked the nurse to put her through the painful sponge bath and shampoo. She arrived just after the pudding, and of course Pepper came in looking like a supermodel in heels and tasteful jewelry, her pantsuit still showing off her mile long legs and high heels.

"I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to come visit!" She was sweet and concerned asking questions about how the staff was treating her, and did she want better gowns? It was really an opening for Pepper to wave Happy in with a few bags of the most beautiful robes Darcy had ever seen. A terry cloth one, a gray cashmere one that probably cost more than Darcy's first car and three silky satiny affairs that came in different prints. Plus five cotton shifts that looked like they were mostly for layering under the others.

"That's too much! I can't possibly-"

Pepper gave her a stern look, silencing Darcy then softened, "I won't hear of it. They say you're going to be on bedrest for a long time. And you can't believe how Steve blushed when he talked about visiting you."

Darcy tried rolling her eyes but she was pretty sure she felt her blush flare up as strong as it could possibly be in her state.

Pepper kept talking about Tony and how he was driving his assistants insane, Fury had conceded that they bring her to a private hospital so Jane could stay with her as much as possible. Darcy's eyes went round and she tried not to think about whether or not her insurance would cover this stay.

"Listen Tony, Bruce and Happy, they said you saved them from the full blast of the tear gas. He felt really bad that they couldn't get to you in time," her eyes were moist but she was at the door and opening it. Then Tony came in with the biggest Stitch Darcy had ever seen, he was like three feet tall and plush.

"I didn't know Agents were allowed to squeal." he remarked, Darcy had been too happy to stop herself.

"I'll have to quit then." Darcy was grinning like a fool. "Besides I don't think I'm supposed to accept gifts... and I want them all! I may be a little high on morphine right now don't hold it against me." They laughed while Darcy hugged the massive Stitch on her good side even though it pulled at the injury she didn't stop hugging it.

Pepper and Tony left an hour later when Jane shooed them out insisting it was late and Darcy needed her rest. The next few days were filled with movies, and visits from the whole team. They had a habit of bringing food to eat with Jane or coming just when Jane was getting stir crazy, Darcy suspected Pepper or Bruce had set up a rotation. But the nightmares were easier to ignore when someone was there when she woke up or right after. Wednesday they took her back into surgery for the skin grafts on her leg. Darcy lost another two days to a sedative and morphine haze, the doctor told Jane at some point that Darcy really shouldn't have had the skin grafts done because she was too weak but Darcy had insisted.

They had a pizza night on Saturday in her suite but Darcy pouted because she wasn't allowed pizza yet. Though Darcy did have all the gelato she could want once Jane let Happy deliver the gelato Pepper had ordered. Even though they were watching the Dark Knight (and no Darcy was NOT being meta, watching a mythic superhero while hanging out with superheroes because she'd been in the middle of a superhero squabble) pizza denial was like torture. She was really very high on sugar most of the time. It occurred to Darcy that at some point before waking up from surgery and after getting rescued all their defenses and barriers had fallen.

She was falling asleep, sugar crash of course, before the end of the movie so they left, Jane and Bruce being the last ones, talking into the wee hours of the night quietly. Darcy would have liked to believe that they were cuddling because Bruce and Jane needed people in their lives. Anyways she woke up screaming from a nightmare where she was back on the ship and the lackeys turned into zombies when she killed them. Jane held Darcy again and Bruce checked with the nurses to make sure they gave her some sedatives.

Sunday Jane and Darcy were left to alone because the team was off Avenging shit. Darcy finally got around to catching up on her inbox. And she was supposed to have her evaluations at the end of next week.

The team would eventually be on a total of two missions during the twenty-two days she was in the hospital. On the days Bruce, Tony and Jane were all in the lab emails were in the low dozens. During the first mission day (when Jane was also out of the lab because Darcy had been in surgery; how very convenient that the team was Avenging shit when she was having surgery, so nice of the villains to attack when they couldn't hang out) the number of emails dried up. Darcy let it pass thinking that of course they were going to goof off a little no one was there to supervise besides JARVIS and he couldn't do much because when he interacted with them they tended to get paranoid and it drove morale down. There were statistics JARVIS sent her and Darcy suffered through reading them all. Finally she formulated a plan. She spent half a day observing the lab assistants, had JARVIS put her up on every screen and every holo display, and discreetly lock down the lab and came at them like a Big Brother. Except she was benevolent. Maybe.

It took about an hour to get everyone to conference properly, quiet down and stop treating it like it was more than an annoyance. Clearly they weren't used to conferencing and they were really distracted by her hospital bed, she couldn't get them to focus on the agenda she'd written out. Lots of dumb questions too.

"Are you ok?"

"When are you coming back?"

"Why don't you know when you're coming back?"

"Drs. Banner, Foster and Stark are really mean and grumpy all the time no one is feeding them!"

"Is JARVIS clairvoyant?" Darcy was stumped by that question trying to figure out if she really had time deal with that. And then she realized the normally deadly serious Jen was screwing with her.

When the conference was over they were all back on schedule and agreed to write reports to keep Darcy updated.

When the team came back from their mission, a painful one day battle providing much needed back up to the Fantastic Four. They'd deliberately left the twins behind when they went because well apparently they needed some more training and bonding but that had backfired and they ended up needed Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch after all. Which made Darcy wonder if who was responsible for their training now, because Coulson wasn't around. She had lots of questions sometimes the team had answers for her and other times they changed the subject. She decided to ask for more clearance.

Anyways the main team ended up spending the majority of the next three days in the hospital with her because supposedly they were injured and needed to be in the hospital. (Ok most of them were definitely injured and were sporting their own bandages but Steve's bruised ribs didn't show and Bruce was literally just fine after he got some sleep). They would take turns in the room because at some point the nurses tried to kick them out for lights out. It was a bit like a clubhouse accused one doctor who kept sneaking back into the room because she seemed to have a crush on half the Avengers And everyone wants to be in a club once it's formed. Though Darcy was very sure they were all paired up except for Bruce and the twins, Steve it was rumored (by the demure Pepper) had found himself a nice waitress though when he saw her Darcy didn't know because... well he was here or at SHIELD training Wanda and Quicksilver all the time.

Darcy wondered if that swoony doctor wasn't just a SHIELD operative, and really maybe the whole floor was filled with SHIELD personnel because damn the team was ALWAYS HERE.

Wanda and Pietro looked so normal except for his silver hair (not hotter than Anderson Cooper though) and Wanda's amazing intensity out of their costumes (her costume was definitely sexier than Nat's though, she basically wore sheer nylons, a corset and a cape all in red). Also their accents were getting softer every day and they liked hanging out in Darcy's room.

When Tony, Jane and Bruce finally showed up at the lab after the mission days (and hanging out at hospital) they'd all been gone for about four days total. Darcy was rudely woken up by armfuls of gifts sent by the lab assistants (all eight assistants had sent gifts). It was stuff like petri dishes with colorful cultures on them spelling out messages on them, strings of binary code on metal scraps artfully arranged into flower type sculptures (Tony said the code spelled out "Flowers"), even some fractal art.

Tony was stunned that they liked her so much, "you were there less than thirteen days!"

Bruce was touched by the way the lab assistants would approach him now to ask after her health.

Jane arranged it all, the gifts, the flowers real and metal and reprimanded Tony for not realizing how brilliant Darcy was as a lab assistant-turned-agent so of course he was surprised but Jane wasn't at all. Jane said this all with a proud parent smugness, Darcy rolled her eyes and thanked Coulson silently for the endless hours spent learning protocols and what she had suspected was some hodge-podge of organizational theory and human resource exercises. Apparently the training for assistant-to-the-Liaison ran deeper than she'd realized and Liaison to the Avengers meant "wrangler of superheroes." Because how else could she have established herself as a manager to the labs in less than three weeks? At least she was no longer bored at the hospital.

* * *

A/N: The bulk of this was written two weeks ago but now that I've spent some extra time with the last third of the story I'm feeling better about it. Please let me know what you think!  
Also I've got some ideas for a sequel and I may have started writing it :)


	8. Head in the Clouds

**SHIELD headquarters is actually the Helicarrier this is canon**

The beginning is set sometime in mid to late March about a month before the hostage scenario in Chapter 2.

Also please read the end notes!

* * *

"This will be a week long exercise, not a pleasure cruise." Director Fury was pacing the deck, the early morning sun hidden by big fluffy white clouds.

Darcy begged to differ this was infinitely better than the outpost somewhere in the Mojave desert (coordinates classified to everyone under level four clearance) and allowed her eyes to roam. The whole unit of Probationary Agents apparently agreed as they'd spent the majority of two weeks underground during the day and training on the standard issue SHIELD vehicles at night in evasive maneuvers and in some cases logging time in flight simulators. The desert while spacious did not make up for the claustrophobic quarters below, at sea Darcy could feel herself truly relax. The only other consolation had been seeing where Dr. Selvig was doing his research, though it ended up being more like she was the only recruit who'd brought her parent, all his hovering once reserved for Jane transferred to Darcy's new career. Not to mention she was at least three years younger than the next youngest recruit. Anyways those were the thoughts that entertained her as Director Fury stared down the recruits who stood at attention silently waiting for a landing plane to power down. It was noisy and terrible and she was sure there was going to be hearing damage despite their earplugs but the whole point was they weren't being coddled ever again. They had to learn to deal with that sound if they were going to be at sea on the carrier for the next however many weeks. She focused on the salty breeze, it was delicious, made her dread going back to SHIELD's NYC "headquarters" (apparently being level two meant they got to go on the carrier which was the actual headquarters) where training was done underground. She got some of what Fury was saying but mostly she just let his little lecture wash over her.

Two days later, stuck somewhere in the unfathomable Pacific ocean and Darcy was addicted. She'd had a little nausea the first day but Dramamine vanquished it and now even with her hair an unmanageable frizzy mess she couldn't get enough of being out on the deck.

"Probationary Agent Lewis your watch was over about an hour ago."

"Sorry?"

"Saying it like you meant it might help me believe you."

Darcy grinned and looked up at Agent Coulson. He was wearing a thick black coat and a close mouthed smile his eyes crinkled looking up at the stars, Darcy was also bundled up against the cold in a standard issue blue puffy coat and the blue bridge crew uniform, (pants stolen from her crewmate because she freaking hated the skirt and no one had said anything, really rules were very relaxed on the carrier. As the misty night was clearing up casting starlight on the flight deck, they were operating on all dark at the moment and most lights even inside the carrier were red. She was used to seeing Agent Coulson randomly drop in on her recruitment class. It was part of his personality that he seemed like he could be in multiple places simultaneously at SHIELD headquarters. Now out on the ocean it seemed he was everywhere, and she was getting used to his quiet presence always watching, always vigilant always in control and she was starting to notice his minute facial expressions and slight differences in mood by the intonations and inflections. Really there was no mistaking his smile at the moment, they stayed quiet like that for a while longer.

Darcy had loved being introduced to the Milky Way back in New Mexico during the long nights with Jane but it was nothing compared to being out in the ocean during a new moon.

"I changed my mind I wanna be in the Navy." she was still smiling it seemed like a pleasure cruise so far, especially with views like this.

"You might find the accommodations a bit more... limiting on a battleship." he looked at her sideways.

"Yeah but I'd live out here."

"Maybe we can get you a transfer." They stood like that looking out into the infinity of darkness and starlight and ocean and Darcy felt invincible.

When the helicarrier had first taken to the skies Darcy lost a bit of her appreciation for the helicarrier and took some more Dramamine. Once she adjusted again she grew to appreciate the skies as much as the ocean maybe even more. She was of the opinion that not even Calrissian's Cloud City was this awesome. She was walking along the observation deck after having been blocked off the flight deck trying to be as quiet as possible.

"Probationary Agent Lewis I do not have you down for patrol duty of the observation deck."

"Do you want me to refill your coffee?" she said not at all subtly evading Coulson's point, Darcy's obsession (which it was now she could get stims from her emergency med kit) with coffee one of the many things she had in common with Coulson.

Coulson looked down at his mug to drink the last sip before handing it to her. It had been a long two days and Agent Coulson was looking at the retreating backs of Agents Romanov and Barton. They had just gotten back to the helicarrier but only long enough to tend to their cuts and bruises. All signs pointed to their being dropped off again if their full flight gear and the preparations on the flight deck and the bridge were take into account. "Now if you don't mind Agent Lewis I'll need you to..."

Darcy came to on the couch in her hospital room disoriented after having fallen asleep in her wheelchair in the sun room remembering the helicarrier. She'd been brought back to her room and placed on the couch all without waking up. It was worrisome sure but she checked and yep her IV was back in, so she could blame the continuing supply of morphine and or random sedatives they kept pumping for her lack of alertness. She wanted to go back to the helicarrier to the comfort of being safe and high in the sky not just chemically high and unable to do anything besides electronically stalk a group of adult scientists.

It was yet another Monday, and the beginning of it had not gone smoothly. Upon waking that morning Darcy realized that she'd lost count of how many Mondays had passed in the hospital (without electronic assistance). Agent Sitwell had come in read her in on her situation, she hadn't spoken to the man since before the Invasion. The investigation about her actions on the ship had finished early in the second week by the FBI. (Two Mondays? oh right twelve actual days in the hospital) SHIELD legally had no jurisdiction since her actions had technically been the result of a kidnapping (until after the fact when she was rescued) and Darcy got the distinct feeling there was some serious bureaucratic bickering stalling things. Mainly Agent Sitwell said the FBI had wanted to interview Darcy but SHIELD refused. They were going to schedule some psych evals to appease the FBI. However her performance reviews from Tony, Bruce and Jane were glowing. There was a ton of paperwork and she would not be returning to work until the end of the month, a "mere" three weeks away. That made her mad thinking of being stuck in this helpless position and she had started arguing with her superior saying hers was mostly a paper pushing coffee getting job.

"Clearly its not. Don't worry, myself or Agent Hill will be checking in on them." They didn't talk about her upcoming evaluations though which were supposed to have been done a week before. Sitwell sent Darcy a schedule of her next three weeks of recovery evaluations would be carried out and the stress of the encounter coupled with the pain in her body had stirred Darcy into restless action.

She snuck out of the room in her wheelchair aiming to find a nice place to relax. She was exhausted and her breathing was labored, sweat beading on her hairline, when she found the sun room. It was basically an enclosed balcony open to the expanse of the city she found some tall plants and spent entirely too much energy moving them around so she could hide herself from view. In her morphine haze she didn't even lose heart that the city was blanketed with queerly sunlight colored fog, (besides it helped her forget about the Invasion). It reminded her of being on the helicarrier which had stirred up her memories and so she dove into them.

Of course her "rescuer" from the "dangerous" sun room where she happened to have dozed off without her IV wouldn't come forward. All she knew was that the nurses had alerted the team and somehow she'd ended up back in her room, alone on the couch. "Cowards the whole lot of them!" she said shaking her fist, Jane just rolled her eyes and kept working.

The next few days were filled with physical therapy, psych evals and the steady stream of team members bringing her food once she could have it, and watching movies with her while she alternated working on lab stuff and writing and reviewing reports for her scientists (she didn't _mean_ to disobey orders, it just happened that way).

Darcy had started keeping track of who visited her (and confirmed that there was definitely a rotation in action), Steve switched off with Agents Barton and Romanov, one day on one day off, Steve had started staying longer once they started watching movies and then they'd gotten through the entire first and second seasons of I Love Lucy by Friday. It had started quite innocently, Tony set Darcy up with some Stark version of Netflix, Hulu and redbox in that she had access to pretty much everything digitized regardless of copyrights. So of course Darcy wanted to watch the show she'd loved watching with her Grandma Golda as a little kid.

"I make a brand new program with a UI that's actually an AI not unlike JARVIS' younger baby brother for you so you can watch whatever you want and you choose a 1950's show about a loudmouth redhead?" Tony had exclaimed indignantly. Jane, Darcy and Steve looked up blinking not knowing what to say. Bruce was just returning and only caught the tail end.

"I'm pretty sure you're the loudmouth in your relationship Tony, not Pepper."

And Jane giggled, Steve grinned, Darcy said, "Bruce, Tony here is just arguing against watching I Love Lucy," and she was trying not to laugh at the absurdity of the comparison.

Darcy and Jane tended to work while watching the show, Steve would eat and look things up on his tablet. Darcy called it "historical-culture immersion," because of all the references to 1950's lifestyle, technology and culture and it was a whole spiel when she tried explaining to Tony why Steve was _totally_ benefitting from the show. Finally she gave up because he got distracted and wanted to go back to the lab, he was very fidgety lately.

"Your bullshitting skills are commendable." he said bouncing on his feet.

"Thank you." She had after all been pre-law.

"Wasn't a compliment." Darcy just waved goodbye.

Tony was unpredictable about his visitations but almost daily, and he was always annoyed that she was still "interfering" with the lab assistants.

"Do you want me to do your paperwork?" JARVIS tattled that Tony hadn't turned in a single report and kept terrorizing the lab assistants. Bruce tended to come with him, probably because Tony was annoying him and getting him to visit Darcy was the only way he could get him to eat. Tony and Darcy ended up doing several reports and since she was on a roll she did a few for Bruce and Jane. "You damn well better file these!" she yelled at Tony. He just stuck out his tongue out at her.

Jane was there every day for at least six hours and often spent the night in Darcy's suite. Pepper came once every four days, but always with gifts and concerns for how to make her more comfortable. Darcy got a bunch of beauty products, (salves and lotions as well as perfectly matched makeup, Darcy suspected the superspies had pitched in) all in a gorgeous red leather bag, ("Who's Kate Spade?" Jane had asked, making Darcy face palm). The last time she got new sunglasses (her aviators had been lost during the thing with the slavers) and a tiny bluetooth earpiece to go with a separate Stark cellphone for the lab assistants to reach her at and for Darcy to reach JARVIS.

Pepper was very angry when she found out that Darcy had started working on lab assistant issues shortly after her skin grafts during the team's first mission when she was in the hospital (if Darcy considered it a feat to keep _ANYTHING _from Pepper for over a week she really couldn't be faulted).

"Darcy you were recovering from skin grafts and three days out of surgery! No I won't take any of these things back, I happen to know your leave isn't paid by SHIELD, you will take all of it and more." Happy had been holding the red leather bag and playing with Darcy's new tablet not bothering to even offer a sympathetic face. Later Tony showed her a tiny little tracker he'd attached to the purse, "I do it to all Pepper's bags, that way you'll know if anyone's been in your stuff or where it is with this little app I made."

Darcy said thank you. Apparently it was the only thing she was allowed to say to Pepper concerning the gifts. Even Jane and Bruce were scared silent once Pepper rounded on them for letting Darcy work in her state standing side by side looking for all the world like repentant children.

"Pepper, Bruce could Hulk out don't yell at him," Tony was trying his only trump card as she took a breath from scolding them.

"Oh please, the Hulk would never hurt me." Bruce couldn't help but smile at Pepper's response. And then Pepper made them apologize to Darcy for making her work while laid up in the hospital. She didn't however ask that Darcy stop working or be blocked from work. All in all a definite win for Darcy.

Once when Jane and everyone had left the twins walked in when Darcy was supposed to be resting after physical therapy. She'd actually been studying up on Stark Industries from the company servers JARVIS was letting her have access to whatever she wanted and found a wealth of abandoned R&D ideas, she couldn't wait to throw them at the scientists! "Ms. Lewis we wondered if we could speak to you?"

Darcy looked up startled out of her machinations to blink owlishly at Wanda and Pietro.

"Call me Darcy, I'm in my hospital gowns its ok to drop the formality."

"Darcy, we wanted to express our regret that you were caught in the middle of the... what is word?"

"Crossfire?" she guessed.

"Yes crossfire when Magneto came to hunt us down." Wanda and Pietro did look genuinely concerned for her and she didn't hold it against them in the least.

"Well here's the problem Wanda, Pietro, you have nothing to regret. You did the right thing leaving a man whose practices you did not agree with. In my eyes this is part of my job, assisting the Avengers and as a SHIELD agent I'm supposed to fight bad guys. It was going to happen sometime." she said shrugging her shoulders.

"We understand you and the team suffered a great loss recently. They say that Coulson would have been most proud of your actions. I only mention it because well, they are fiercely protective of you and refuse to discuss him in front of you. They have told us stories about Agent Phil Coulson and it seems you are his creature, we see in you the same steadying hand they tell us about." Darcy couldn't decide if Wanda was bringing him up to mess with her or actually thought she needed to know.

Pietro and Wanda did look sufficiently reluctant for bringing it up, but then Pietro continued, "What my sister has forgotten to mention is that as part of the Brotherhood we had... ah intelligence of your Agent Coulson. We know for ourselves just what an honorable man he was, from surveillance and others who ran into him."

Darcy was looking at Wanda, swallowed past the lump in her throat. "Thank you, Wanda, Pietro." she smiled, "now are you two ready to enjoy one of my favorite movies?"

"Yes of course!" Pietro went out for some fast food, even a milkshake for Darcy. She could totally get used to Pietro delivery. She made them watch Lilo and Stitch. Emotional warfare, Darcy excelled at it.

Director Fury came after lunch on Friday and Darcy was ashamed that she was pretty high, but then nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition (or Director Fury).

"So Probationary Agent Lewis, this is definitely one way to try and evade evaluations."

"Sorry, sir?" she knew he was kidding but she was really fucking high and had to make sure.

"I've been visited by Agents Barton and Romanov as well as harassed by Stark, Banner and Ms. Potts. It seems you've made quite the impression on the team." his mouth quirked at the corners, but down not up. And waited a long moment before continuing. "Unfortunately there's something in all these reports that doesn't seem to show up. Do you want to remain a SHIELD agent?"

Darcy was taken completely by surprise, she swallowed and couldn't seem to make her mouth open and say yes. He walked to the window, looked out. "Captain Rogers thinks you're a hero, I tend to believe him."

She could feel her face blush, but she couldn't look at Fury, what does one say to that? "So we're postponing the final decision for one more week. Because once you accept your assignment there's no backing out. Do you understand what that means Probationary Agent Lewis? It means there's going to be endless situations like this, even if you end up behind a desk which this position technically is... these situations will continue to arise. Far more dangerous ones than you can imagine. I think Agent Coulson was right to recommend you to this position, you've fulfilled your orders bonded with the team and Ms. Potts but when I ask you if you want to be a SHIELD agent there can be no hesitation. Am I understood?"

Darcy nodded. "Yes sir."

"Good now you rest up."

"What if I didn't want to. Be an agent." she was too fucking high her mouth was spilling her darkest secrets. "I'm really high right now so maybe its just the morphine talking but... I can't keep killing people I have nightmares, I let innocent women die because I wouldn't put my weapon down, it should have been me."

Director Fury, turned around caught her gaze directly. "I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that because you are in an altered state. You get one week to talk to the Agents, talk to the shrinks and think about what it means. Yes you killed people but you also saved many more. I don't normally visit agents in the hospital you know, think hard about what you really want. See you next week."

And he was gone.

Her first visitors after the Director were Clint and Natasha (besides poor Jane who'd spent the night on the fold out couch again going to the lab briefly but just in time to wait outside the room until he left). Somehow it seemed Clint and Natasha knew. Natasha sat down at the end of the bed, cross-legged, elbows on her knees, resting her chin on her fists and studied her. "Steve says you were really torn up about shooting those sons-of-bitches."

Darcy sucked in a breath, Nat did not pull any punches. "And I confessed to Director Fury that I don't like killing, I have nightmares," _and maybe don't want to be an Agent._ She was playing with the edge of her sleeves.

Clint was busy moving around furniture and started chatting conversationally. "I'm not going to tell you to stay at SHIELD but you did what you had to, you got out alive and you put down the men who were transporting sex slaves. Did you know every one of those women had been raped? Well almost all of them a few were technically virgins but they still had been beaten and forced to do sexual acts. And we found four more bodies of other women that had died from the beatings." He never missed a beat but his face took on a hardness and bitterness that Darcy had never observed.

"On the other hand, you can still do good and not be an agent. Because an agent has to be ready to kill without knowing valid reasons. You get orders and you take your shot." said Natasha, "No emotion, emotion gets you killed."

Clint continued, "You don't actually have to be an agent to save people ya know. There's lots of other things you can do right now."

They stared at her, quietly studying and not judging, she realized belatedly that she considered them a unit, even if Clint was doing all the talking Natasha was doing all the watching. Now with the both of them watching her Darcy felt ashamed for being such a wuss, looked down and muttered. "Yeah but I'd miss you guys. You all made it so much easier with this," she motioned to her side. "Its probably lame to ask but what was the point of Magneto coming after the twins anyways? He didn't seem prepared."

"Magneto was working with Hydra, they hired him to do back up and so the Maximoff twins defected. He wanted to draw out the twins. Attacking the car was a nice neat way to cut down the team and force the Maximoffs to help. We were hoping to keep them away from action until they had some time to learn protocol but Magneto forced our hand. You got picked up and sent off with some friends of theirs that thought you were a secretary. They didn't realize you were trained." Clint laughed and fist bumped Darcy. "Taking out Magneto's associates, well lets just say he was in for a little surprise we intercepted their communications when the leader that was holding you wanted back up. Magneto however never came to help them obviously." They were quiet while the nurse came in with some soup. It was all stuff she could have figured out but it helped to hear it and not focus on the elephant in the room.

"So anyways don't worry about that, its over we got our end and you cleared up the other end." Clint was being vague for the nurse and sitting on the windowsill again. Darcy played with her soup while the nurse glared at Natasha and Clint, obviously still holding the interrogation against them.

After the nurse left Darcy thought about the ship, and blurted out. "I choked. When I was shooting the leader and his last lackey. I guess I should have taken the shot because the women died anyways. Captain doesn't get it, nobody does, I let those girls die!"

Natasha waited for a moment to make sure Darcy was done. "In our line of work there is no second guessing, we usually don't have time. Time is a luxury. After, if you're still alive, either accept what happened was necessary or you find a new line of work."

Darcy dipped her chin, drawing a deep breath, a single nod. They offered to grab her some real food, Clint went to grab some and they ate while they watched some Archer, they were pretty much the only two besides Tony who liked it. It was refreshing to be able to laugh a little at something raunchy and not having to feel everything so acutely. Nat insisted on putting Darcy through some light stretches and loosening up Darcy's tense neck and back muscles with a careful massage.

Sunday Steve came early and he must have talked to Clint and Natasha. Darcy was starting to think they were a bunch of gossiping women when she wasn't around. He brought up not wanting to be a soldier anymore when he woke up, being discharged was a bit of an issue, but now he had the Avengers. "You've still got choices. You can get a job doing practically anything else and not have to worry about killing people to stay alive." his eyes were sadly hopeful but his voice was normal. He'd brought her more ice cream and some chocolate chip cookies, they got a few more episodes of I Love Lucy in before Jane came by to relieve him, but he didn't leave, just pulled out his little moleskin sketchbook and sketched Lucille Ball, Jane working and Darcy asleep on her Stitch like a kid. Darcy did not want to think how much more awesome this would have been if he didn't see her as a kid under his command. And she hadn't been stuck in the hospital.

She fell asleep with Jane and Steve still in the room, like she often did. Except this time she dreamed of the helicarrier and the night she saw her first agent die. It was flashes really even asleep she knew it was a dream. And even though she wanted to ask Coulson for advice she acted as she had during that night. Getting bandages cutting clothes away, holding the agents' hand as he faced death. Coulson had been busy attending to Natasha and Clint but in the dream he was standing silent watch. When the doctor could do no more for the agent Darcy had stayed with the agent, holding his hand giving him more morphine trying not to cry and keep the brave face for him. When he gasped his last breaths in her dream she and dream Phil watched as the agent died.

Darcy woke up tears on her face and her Stitch. She appreciated that Jane was gone along with Steve but took the opportunity to get up and splash water on her face. She looked in the mirror. "You know Phil I would really appreciate if you did me a solid and told me what to do here. I don't want to leave this job but I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." She braced her hands on the side of the sink and let her head drop forward. "I'm desperate here Phil maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you were around give me a pep talk."

As she emerged from the bathroom Steve was looking like he was trying to both arrange a cake box on the crowded table and leave at the same time looking ten shades of awkward in blushing cheeks and downcast eyes. She guessed it was because he'd heard her talking to herself. She was too tired to care. "Aww for me?" she thought. But what came out was, "Did you see Phil die?"

She wanted to kick herself for asking such a stupid question but it was too late and settled for clapping her hand over her mouth. But instead of saying sorry and taking it back she waited to see if he'd answer.

"No, I didn't." he looked sadly like he wanted to say something else but there was nothing else to say.

"Sorry, I don't know why I asked, I'm just... missing him for selfish reasons when I've got all of you trying to help me get through all of this. I'm not really tempted to leave SHIELD but everyone seems so eager to make it ok for me to leave."

Steve looked like he wanted to say something but before he could Jane and her science bros returned. _There's really too much to focus on with therapy, work and the team for me to be dwelling on whether or not Phil's opinion could sway my decision to stay, _thought Darcy, shoving down the embarrassment of asking Captain America to come to her pity party.

After everyone left for the night Darcy felt bad that she literally was spending so much time on this "decision" and bothering poor Steve had made her realize that she was acting out of character. Removing the IV and climbing down gingerly she got in her wheelchair and wheeled herself back to the sunroom. The night was as clear as it was going to get and she desperately missed the skies of the Mojave, of New Mexico, and the blanket of stars that passed for sky during her time in the Pacific ocean.

She took a deep breath and forced herself not shiver. "Its ok Phil, I don't need you anymore. Thanks for being there though. I'll be ok." She sat in the stillness of the night (granted only to those not living in the lower dozen floors, high enough as she was to be away from the traffic noise). She awoke from a light doze to bright flashes of light and a figure zooming through the buildings darting and weaving, finally dropping into Central Park. Down there she could just make out the shapes of the Hulk, Iron Man, and the Scarlet Witch. She strained to see and itched to be there fighting. The encounter was brief, less than fifteen minutes later it was over. They would be ok but Darcy's heart clenched at the thought that they might not be.

An hour or so passed and Darcy forced herself into a semi-meditative state, keeping her eyes peeled for more activity knowing there was no reason for them to contact her. The thing with this "decision" was that she didn't really consider it a temptation to leave, she just wanted a pep talk. She wanted to know or rather have someone tell her that it would get easier. That the nightmares would go away, that she wouldn't keep seeing the bodies of the people she'd shot or their dead still faces. None of that mattered because when she saw a battle her instinct was to run towards it and **do something**.

Also, Darcy decided, she needed to stop taking the morphine (and possibly also the sedatives) they were making her too moody and high all the time. She was going to wean herself off. No more of this saying stupid things to Director Fury shit because she was so high. And she felt a little bad for making Steve uncomfortable but it served him right since she was pretty sure he'd been the one to carry her back to the couch from the sunroom on Monday, how dare he manhandle her when she was unconscious and unable to enjoy it, grrr...

"Yeah I'll be ok." she said with a small smile.

* * *

Again sorry for the long wait, its been an entire month and a half since I updated. The good news is I'm happier with this chapter than I was even last week. I think I needed to let it simmer so I could tweak the story a bit. Also I may or may not have started two sequels. ;)

Please let me know what you think! I'm grateful for every kudo, comment and subscription! Also if anyone is interested in helping me out as a beta I would love you forever 3


	9. End Game

This is the end of this part of Darcy's story. I hope you enjoy it!

* * *

In the dark and quiet hours when Jane wasn't there and sometimes even when she was Darcy would look back on her life. Not the silly high school dramas that might have derailed her if she'd let them or the boys that facebook remembered better than she did... She'd remember her mother and grandmother.

"Bernadette "Bernie" Rosenthal was a remarkable woman," they'd said at her funeral. "She gave so much to this world, art and beauty, and then for the hell of it she went to law school and fought back injustice and prejudice."

Darcy had hated her mother then. Hated her for dying, just like Grandpa had died and left Grandma Golda. At the funeral she'd been so small and lost clinging to Grandma's stiff dress until she couldn't take the cheek pinching anymore.

She remembers Max dragging her outside and taking her to the end of the road into the little wood that bordered the west side of town. "Come on, don't be afraid!"

Darcy hadn't been afraid then. Just very, very sad.

So she'd followed Max the two little girls wandering for hours. As the sun went down they realized they were lost. When they returned they were dirty and hungry but still got in trouble. Everyone had been angry with them. The next morning Aunt Esther, Max's mom, took Max away. Then it was just the two of them, Grandma Golda and little Darcy.

That had been the end of sadness. Being a little kid an "orphan" as the others called her. But that was a lie she had a home, had Grandma Golda, even Aunt Esther and cousin Max all the way in New York. And most importantly she had love.

Now all these years later in a secret life that even her cousin and grandmother didn't know about she'd found another family. People to watch over her and care for her, people to fight alongside. There seemed to be a path now that she looked back, one that disappeared with Bernie's (_Mom's!_) death. If she'd grown up with Mom _and_ Grandma her life would have been different, maybe not completely but maybe she would have been an artist like her mom and wouldn't have bothered with Political Science and being pre-law. That path (whatever it was) was long gone now and Darcy found herself wondering if Mom's death had been necessary for Darcy to have such a remarkable life.

_This fate and destiny crap probably means I've had too much morphine today. _Darcy did however realize that her time in the hospital was coming to a close and she was nowhere near ready for her evaluations and she was barely keeping up with her physical therapy. It was time to work hard at the business of recuperating.

She had almost a full day after their night-time mission to think on things. Jane came of course and in short order Natasha and the twins came to keep her company for a few hours after the sun had gone down answering questions vaguely about the mission. Somewhat obviously playing down the danger while steering conversation away from it. It felt odd that they seemed to act like Darcy wasn't entitled to know about such a small mission. She hated it.

Tony was the only one who acted like nothing had changed and he hadn't heard about the possibility that Darcy might leave SHIELD, the whole visit the next morning he and Bruce were bickering. Bruce had gotten there first by a few minutes and said sorry about not grabbing her first for the thousandth time (maybe it was only the third time whatever). Apparently this had come up because the lab assistants were terribly efficient now and always deferred to Ms. Lewis. Who incidentally they rather deal with than Tony. Obviously Tony reasoned, if Bruce had just grabbed her, then his lab assistants would return his lab back to his tyranny.

"This again? Honestly, I handled it," Darcy said, grinning. "And do you really want to deal with your lab assistants Tony?"

He jumped on that, "Why don't you come work for me? You can do all the same things except for the official SHIELD business. I mean we're already used to you, and we hate breaking in new people. Why do think we're here all the time?" Tony's voice was nonchalant and light but he looked sincere, even though he seemed to be joking he wasn't flippant.

Her jaw dropped open but then she quickly held her shock and laughed it off. It had clearly been a setup, baiting (guilting really) Bruce into bringing up the kidnapping (and by extension SHIELD without actually bringing up SHIELD, no "oh hey being a SHIELD agent is dangerous I'd rather you not do it anymore" from Tony) and Bruce didn't look like he minded because well that's just how Tony operated. Darcy just kept working on the usual stuff for the rest of the day half nearly forgetting the unwelcome offer. Steve was apparently _not_ involved with some vigilantism going on in the city the last two days (reports mentioned a blonde athlete type tracking down known gangsters in Harlem and other tiny blurbs on twitter of a mysterious duo). But really Clint wasn't very convincing.

The next night Tony came in with Pepper. "We'd like to offer you a job as PA for Tony and myself."

"Huh? I mean... I haven't said no to SHIELD." It occurred to her that outright refusal could seem rude. Appropriate but rude.

"Yet?" Tony said mildly.

"Just think about it, I'll leave the contract here." Pepper patted the thick manila envelope and winked.

"And I won't even tell you about the perks besides the fact that there are perks and it would unfairly sway you to leave SHIELD." Tony was fiddling around with the tv because he was convinced they could get better sound.

"This isn't a joke." Darcy was going through the packet, curiosity getting the best of her. There was a contract for five years with little downside if she left early, which she could extend whenever. Literally job security as long as she wanted it. Even SHIELD couldn't offer that, theirs was more the "you're with us until you die when you sign the dotted line." Before she could stop herself she was wondering out loud, "Like... wouldn't I have to leave? Everything you work on is top secret."

"Well we may have already talked to Fury about it. And he may have agreed to put you on indefinite suspension so that you don't lose your clearance."

Darcy blinked. Did it make her angry that they'd ask or angry that this had happened so quickly? Then she counted to ten, looked down at the packet in her hands.

"You know you're kinda slow for a gal that can wipe out a dozen bad guys, single-handed." his brief smile was genuine and admiring but he was busy taking apart the built-in speakers and adding tiny little things to it. Apparently they were magic things since suddenly it was loud. "As his former assistant-" started Pepper.

"Best ever, you can hope to be a distant second." interjected Tony.

"-that didn't have SHIELD training, I have to tell you Darcy its not an easy job being Tony Stark's assistant, you might have to use a gun again. But the chances should decrease. At least a little." Pepper was sitting on the bed, her long legs crossed, Tony next to her reacting to what Pepper was saying his eyes twinkling.

Darcy just managed, "Thank you. You have no idea how much this offer means to me." It meant a lot because they really wanted her around and she'd only been ordered to endear herself to them right? Darcy was busy doubting herself but Pepper just smiled and squeezed her hand as Happy brought in a selection of smoothies in a cooler for Darcy, a burger for the guys and salad for Pepper. They chatted about the team and it was confirmed. They really were just a group of gossiping superheros. Apparently Bruce had gotten in touch with an old girlfriend, (thereby ruining Darcy's plan B for Jane's love life in case Thor didn't come back soon). Pepper looked back at Darcy and said, "Darcy what's wrong?"

"Brain freeze agh!" They laughed at her and she grinned sheepishly and while they laughed she tried recalling the name of Bruce's old girlfriend from his file. Betty something. She'd look it up as soon as they left. Did plotting whilst hanging out come naturally to all SHIELD agents or was she really that bored?

The next night Steve came a little early for pizza night (there was literally no other cuisine that everyone could eat casually and agree on quickly) and caught her with the nurse walking back to bed from the bathroom. Her skin grafts itched terribly, and her side was pulling like a bitch and she was sweating from the exertion after physical therapy. "Oh Darcy I'm sorry I should go."

The nurse really liked Steve and said no don't leave she's just about done. Darcy could have punched her, she would have liked the chance to put some makeup on and have a sponge bath. Steve offered to help her back into bed and the nurse left before Darcy could get her breath back and say no, leave buddy I'm gross.

Steve picked her up gently from her good side, completely clinical like he picked up injured women all the time. Darcy was vividly reminded that she'd decided he was the one that picked her up and returned her to bed last week and he probably did pick up injured women all the time. Part of Darcy wanted to rebel and demand to be put down. The other part couldn't stop blushing when she found her hand lingering on his chest a moment too long. He tucked her in being extra gentle with her injured side. This time he didn't blush which was good because Darcy was blushing enough for the both of them. _I wanted to be awake to enjoy being carried by Captain America, damnit I'm blushing like an idiot!_ She was however glad for the nice gowns she was wearing that covered everything up. There was a moment though when their eyes met and his looked like he was about to say something, and Darcy wanted to flirt but then the moment was gone. Once she could breathe again she said, "Thanks, I'm sorry you had to do that."

"Lewis it was nothing. You weigh nothing." he said. _Last name again, right he has a girlfriend, and scars... I've got a lot of them. _Darcy thought.

"Well walking sucks. I've decided not to do it for a while. Except I really want to leave this place. Wheelchairs are completely underrated." Steve laughed, by then Jane, Clint, Natasha and the twins had arrived.

Jane winked at her when she came in for a hug. "Sorry I didn't come earlier!"

"That's ok you just missed my little excursion, I did like eight laps of this room after physical therapy. That's why I'm so gross and sweaty."

"You look fine, Darcy," Natasha handed her a towel and Jane handed her the makeup. Because it is universal truth that one sometimes needed some makeup to feel the comfort of having a mask to present to the world when one felt like crap. And couldn't stop blushing wildly.

They all settled in and set out the pizza, beers and sodas. "So are you going to take the job?" asked Bruce.

"Uh..." _Oh right Lewis, that job offer thing that you're not going to take but that also punches you in the gut with emotion because of everything it means._

"What job?" inquired Jane.

"Pepper and Tony offered her a job as an assistant, you know in case she doesn't want to be a SHIELD agent anymore." Clint supplied.

Darcy looked down ashamed to meet anyone's gaze. "It was really nice of them but I mean, being a SHIELD agent, its kinda way more important, I wasn't really going to-"

"Darcy that would be wonderful!" Jane hugged her a bit too enthusiastically, and she bit back a cry.

"No Jane it wouldn't be. I mean, yeah it sucks k-, shooting people and you have to wear a suit but, you get to save people."

"You can save people and not have to shoot a gun, we talked about this. You're good at this. But." Nat sat close to her, lifted her chin, "There's no shame in wanting a different life Agent Lewis. You'd get to be Darcy again."

Darcy wanted to hug Natasha but she had the distinct feeling it would be inadvisable.

Steve nodded. "Did you ever want to be an agent before?"

"Um, no but. Its the job you know? Kinda like what else is there?"

"Are you worried about disappointing Phil?" Tony was at the door watching them all, Bruce at his side. "I swear I'm not trying to make you cry again, but I don't think Phil would want you taking this up if you had even the smallest doubt." The team members exchanged a look.

"Do you know how Phil Coulson died Lewis?" Steve was at the foot of her bed, Nat sitting on one side of the bed, Jane on the other, Clint perched on the window sill, just behind Steve. "He died standing up to Loki."

"I said it was a stupid thing to do. I was wrong."

"Tony was just, upset that we weren't there." Steve glanced at Tony and back at Darcy.

"The point is, you proved you can handle yourself, proved you could do the job. You don't have to worry about proving anything else to Phil. He'd be proud but he'd want you to be happy." Tony was serious.

Jane was squeezing her hand, and kissed her cheek. "Remember when Phil asked you if you wanted to be a SHIELD agent? You thought he was kidding? He told you could do it, but it would require sacrifice." Jane hadn't been there but she'd "accidentally" left the security cameras rolling in her labs.

"Ok, so here's the only thing that matters. No one will think less of you for leaving SHIELD, its not like you washed out at training, you took out twelve bad guys and saved 38 women all in a day. I promise to shoot anyone who looks at you funny for leaving SHIELD in the ass. Got it?" Clint's tone was light but he was earnest. Everyone nodded and sorta just converged on the pizzas and beer.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Jane was quizzical but whispering while she fixed Darcy's pillows.

"You just got here?" Darcy shrugged. More like, _I'm not taking it, duh. _

They all sat back then after the heaviness and bickered over what movies to watch. Apparently they'd agreed on Moulin Rouge sometime ago but someone had brought Harry Potter, then someone else had brought Raiders of the Lost Ark. So they took a vote. Raiders won.

It was cozy with Jane still sitting next to her, Natasha spread out over the foot of the bed. Tony and Bruce sitting on the lounge chair, Steve on the ground. Clint still perched on the sill and the twins squished in a stolen chair from the family waiting room. It looked uncomfortable but as Darcy studied their faces imagining them in the costumes that they'd been wearing on the tabloids, or as they walked down the halls of SHIELD, it became so surreal that they'd be here with her.

There was a shift in reality for Darcy then. Almost as if she really was standing at a fork in the road and even though she wanted to take the less traveled road everyone was pulling her down the other. She wanted all the doubt to be gone. As if on cue a she heard a whisper of a voice. "Miss Lewis what exactly do you plan to do with your life?" the ghost of Phil may have been brought on by morphine or the heady closeness of these superheroes gathered around at rest. It seemed they who had come together over the death of a suit were trying to keep her out of the suit and save themselves the trouble of another dead comrade. But keeping her at home didn't guarantee safety, it just meant some other poor sap would get cut down in her stead. Darcy knew what she had to do, but falling in love with those that Phil had assembled was worse than getting shot. You can heal from a gunshot wound but walking around trying to get things done while your friends were out there fighting without you... that would be unimaginably tough. Darcy felt that she was a poor replacement for Phil but they were piling up all their hopes and dreams for what they would have liked Phil to have. It was confusing, painful and bittersweet.

Of course Darcy was dozing off by the second hour but then Clint shot Bruce and Tony in the butt with a rubber band. Apparently having a popcorn fight is the only solution to that and soon everyone was laughing and stumbling over furniture making a huge mess.

Friday morning Darcy woke up around six, which was early considering she was sleeping upwards of fourteen hours a day. She asked the nurses for help with a bath. Gently she put on her suit. The whole ordeal took two hours and Darcy dropped into the lounge chair and dozed off. At nine Natasha woke her up, helped her into a wheelchair, Clint was waiting outside in a black sedan with blacked out windows. They drove in silence mostly because Darcy was savoring her first coffee in weeks. When they got into the SHIELD garage Natasha gave her shoulder a squeeze and Clint eased her gently into the wheelchair. Agent Hill greeted her at the elevator and Darcy made sure her bland expression was back on. The whole thing didn't take very long. They asked her a series of questions she answered as thoroughly as possible. They took her in for a polygraph test, even though the readouts were going to be useless given she hadn't taken any pain medication and was already in distress.

Finally they headed up to Director Fury's office. Darcy demanded they take the wheelchair away. She was sworn in and signed the paperwork to officially become a SHIELD agent. Then gently she walked out on her own two feet and eased back into her wheelchair. As they reversed the process and she waited patiently in the garage a nameless agent introduced herself and said Clint and Natasha had been called away. Darcy shrugged and fought the urge to yawn. They drove for a bit and then parked in a random warehouse at the docks. She thought about worrying but let the whole scene play out like it was a simulation. Darcy blocked out the pain as best she could and forced herself to be ready. She exited again with assistance and waited patiently in her wheelchair. Director Fury emerged from the shadows.

"You're fired Agent Lewis." he said as he pushed her over to a table.

"Well at least I have the record for the worlds shortest SHIELD agent career." her sunglasses in place she could trust her best bland face was still intact, he sat down across from her. They studied each other for a bit.

"Did you anticipate this?"

"Anticipate would be... too generous, I thought there might be a chance this was a long game but I didn't bet on it." Fury liked her, he really did she could tell.

"So now that you're fired, I hear you have a job offer."

"Yeah I'm going to be Tony Stark's personal assistant. Apparently there are perks that would have unfairly swayed me to take the job so Tony didn't tell me about them." Darcy was offhand almost bored in her tone of voice.

"Great, because you don't qualify for any benefits from SHIELD when you work deep cover." He motioned to a stack of papers. "We're just going to shred these documents that you signed to become a SHIELD agent." Now Darcy quirked an eyebrow. "See, officially you quit your assignment and rejected appointment. This never happened." he waved to the their surroundings. "You will sign these documents as your exit package." Darcy started reading and signing. It was going to take a while.

"Your unofficial assignment will be deep cover. You will not ever officially step foot in a SHIELD office or file official reports. You will live in the public eye as Tony Stark's assistant, become indispensable to him and your assignment will be to live the life that any civilian would in your given circumstances. You will have relationships with everyone in Stark Tower and know them by name, and generally know everything that goes on there. You might someday have to draw a gun against a threat; you may even have to leave on vacations which you will never have, instead you will continue to train, be debriefed and never ever reveal your assignment. This assignment will take years. If all goes well you will be there every day to protect Virginia Potts, Jane Foster and possibly Elizabeth Ross. You will be the last line of defense against those who would harm the defenseless. The worst case scenario will be the thing you are waiting for. Do you understand?"

"Can I date?"

"That's your only question?"

"Can I get married?"

Fury clenched his jaw but answered. "Yes, live a normal life. Now tell me your mission as you understand it."

"Be Stark's assistant, be indispensable, live a normal life. Protect Pepper, Jane and Betty. And I'm waiting for the worst case scenario."

"Good."

"Any other questions?"

"Who do I report to if I have security concerns?"

"You'll have a phone number to call an agent will meet you."

"Should I always carry a gun?" _You can pry my gun from my cold dead fingers! _Darcy thought._At least my taser!_

"Yes."

"If I get offered a promotion do I have to clear it with you first?"

"Yes."

"Will Agents Romanov and Barton know?"

"Agent Romanov might suspect but you are never to confirm her suspicions."

"If I get captured or tortured are you guys coming for me?"

"Probably not."

"Thought so. Where do I sign?"

"Here and here." he gestured at a suitcase with two new packets of papers.

This was officially going to be the day she tired of writing her own name. Signing up to be an Agent, signing an exit package of NDAs, signing up for deep cover. It was endless and ridiculous. Fury wheeled her back to the car. There was just one more question, "Did Agent Coulson anticipate this?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that."

"'Theirs is not to question why, theirs is but to do and die.'" muttered Darcy under her breath as Fury wheeled her back to the car.

"Agent Coulson would be very proud." was the last thing Darcy heard from Fury and even then she wondered if it wasn't wishful thinking.

She was taken back to SHIELD through a secret passage and delivered a floor below the garage in a secret room. She rode the elevator up a floor with the nameless agent (rumor was her name was Agent 13, but Darcy had no clearance to know anything now) and was deposited at the same spot as before.

Clint said only, "As Tony's PA you'll get an apartment at the Tower." Darcy just looked down. It was easy to feign disappointment when she was in so much pain. The excitement that she was going to get to do both things had given her an adrenaline boost but now it was wearing off and pain licked up her leg, blossoming like a sun in her side. The reality of the situation hadn't even hit yet.

"I... guess that's some consolation for giving up my gun." Natasha didn't say anything as they drove her back to the hospital but Darcy was half unconscious and covered in sweat. The nurse came by with pain pills and checked her sutures, they were fine but all the excitement had her bleeding through the tissue-thin skin grafts on her leg. Once changed she fell into a dreamless sleep.

She was woken up by the loud whispering that Jane, Bruce and Tony were carrying on. Tony asked her, "So Agent Lewis or Darcy?"

She sighed heavily, "Darcy Lewis, personal assistant, if you'll have me Tony."

Jane grinned, Tony grabbed the paperwork from the bedside cabinet and Bruce handed her a pen. "I suppose you'll do as my assistant." he winked and quirked a smile. "Now we have to make it official."

As Darcy skimmed through the papers and signed they poured champagne that she couldn't have. Typical.

"So now I can tell you about the perks," Tony was so excited and it made her tired to see him so hyper. And she fell back asleep while Bruce tried distracting him with getting some lunch. Darcy never did hear about the perks that day, it felt like she had imagined the whole deep cover assignment and like she really had been fired. Darcy saw in her minds' eye the anticipated path slip away dissolving into mists as she had when her mother died and her life had changed forever. As it had when Thor had landed and brought with him the concerns of gods and alien invasions.

Later in the evening when Darcy was packing up her things all the flowers had mostly died, except for a few potted ones. She had the option to get discharged from the hospital the next day but didn't feel like she could take one more night of hospital smell. Even with floral aromas the underlying antiseptic chemicals sting was stronger after returning. The movies, books, the robes everything went into suitcases Jane had brought for her things. Jane had persuaded her to let her spend the night at Darcy's apartment.

They were finally in the hallway to her apartment and they found the door was open. Inside most of Darcy's things were missing, so she pulled her taser out of her purse and pushed Jane outside locking her out and checked the apartment methodically. In the bedroom she found Steve and Bruce moving her furniture, "If I'd had my gun I would have shot you two!" she yelled heart pounding despite the relief.

"Well its a good thing I'm indestructible." said Bruce, smiling.

"Should you be walking?" worried Steve. Jane came through the door with Darcy's wheelchair.

"No she's probably bleeding again. Damnit you guys were supposed to be done!"

They smiled sheepishly as Darcy rolled her eyes. Jane explained that Pepper had given her an apartment but it wasn't ready yet and the guys were just helping her move into Jane's apartment for the interim. Darcy was too tired to argue. But she did say thanks. Jane pitched in clearing out the last of the toiletries and checking the closet for stray items. Darcy shooed her and retrieved her spare gun from the safe at the back of the closet. Then she took out the extra gun from the hole under her bed. The guys were watching her warily.

"Don't you think thats a bit much?" Bruce was frowning and staying well away.

"What? they're not SHIELD issued, they're mine." She put them in a reinforced metal suitcase that she dragged out from under the kitchen sink, inside she had a collection of knives and space for the two guns.

"Remind me never to sneak up on you." mumbled Steve but he was smiling down at her and reaching for the suitcase. Darcy growled at him and clutched it to herself.

"Darcy!" reprimanded Jane. Darcy relented and handed over the suitcase.

"Sorry for growling at you Steve."

"You're safe now Darcy." Her name on his lips persuaded her as he took her little arsenal while the perfect view of his ass in his flat front khakis distracted her. Sometimes wheelchairs were awesome. She could probably identify every single team member just from their stride and a picture of their asses.

Bruce had taken the last box of things down to the truck that Happy was driving and it was close to midnight when they finally left the apartment. When they got to Stark Tower Darcy was asleep and Jane had to wake her up. She collapsed back into her wheelchair.

"Where's my suitcase?"

"Steve's got it, he'll take it up to my apartment." Darcy couldn't really argue she felt like crap warmed over and couldn't remember the last time she'd had her painkillers. Jane helped her change and tucked her in.

It had been a long, circuitous and bumpy road to where Darcy was now. Yeah Jane and Pepper had been watching over her in their own ways like overprotective parents. Yeah the team had been fussing over her but somehow it seemed ok now that she knew she had a purpose again. Protect the vulnerable ones, be the last line of defense. And that last lesson Phil had imparted: "keep trying and don't expect backup."

_I __**am**_ _the backup._ It should have scared her but somehow it didn't. Her first day of being a civilian in over six months and Darcy Lewis was living in a skyscraper with like the best job of anyone in her graduating class. Yeah she was winning at life.

* * *

There are literally tons of Easter eggs in here ;)

Thanks for reading, every follow, favorite and review makes me feel loved 3


	10. Epilogue: A Glimpse

**A/N:** On AO3 I started a new story for the outtakes called _Glimpses: Missing Scenes from the Women of the Tower_. (For I think its simpler I just add them to the end of the story)

This takes place directly after _The Last Recommendation of Agent Coulson_. Mostly Darcy adjusting to life at Avengers Tower.

Possible trigger warnings for weight issues: Darcy is having a hard time gaining weight back after the hospital stay.

* * *

Life at the Tower was... odd. Suddenly she was expected to receive guests whenever it pleased them. Everyone acted like Darcy was still in the hospital and would come by to watch movies and shows. She suspected they were trying to fatten her up because they would bring food that she would barely nibble. There was a nurse that visited once a day to help her change the bandages. Jane insisted she remain in her apartment until she returned to work. Darcy begged the nurse to give the ok go back to work. She'd been out for a full four weeks when she finally showed up downstairs, the lab assistants crowding around her and hugging her. She reminded them they'd seen her loads on the screens but that didn't matter.

"What are you doing here?" Tony demanded, he was definitely angry.

"I work here."

"Duh yeah and you live here but. What. Are. You. Doing?" He was looking over the breakfast stuff she'd brought and glaring at the tablet in her hands, like she was the one who was known for blowing stuff up and not him.

Darcy hugged the tablet close and stepped back. "Looking at stuff. JARVIS tell him I got the ok to return to work."

"Miss Lewis' nurse has indicated that she may return to work so long as she spends most of her time sitting down." Jane had emerged from the elevator, wide eyed and annoyed.

"You didn't tell me you'd be down here, I've been looking all over for you!"

"I'm fine, really I am."

"JARVIS monitor her vitals and alert us if she's in distress." Bruce instructed, getting between them and Darcy, she gave him a relieved smile but he slapped a bracelet on her and she frowned.

The day went by uneventfully and she got them through quite a bit of paperwork. Tony had fired two assistants since she'd left and Darcy was trying to figure out if they'd intentionally made the mess she was staring at. As far as she could tell it had happened when she was in the hospital and recovering but gone unreported in the many emails, video conferencing and reports from JARVIS, her control over the lab was not complete. She couldn't find anything to dispute his decision but now his mess of inventions and paper work covered most of his counters. Which explained why he'd retreated downstairs to his "super secret hero lab." What if she was gone for days at a time? This couldn't happen again. She set about working through the paperwork and reprogramming JARVIS to fine-tune his responses to messes and include them in reports. "DAMNIT if there's a mess in the lab I want to know where, when, why and if its necessary!"

"Yes Miss Lewis."

"Its Darcy, JARVIS' I'm not mad at you by the way, only at this ridiculous mess. Sorry for yelling."

"That's quite all right Miss Darcy."

"Cheeky bastard." she grinned.

Then as three o'clock rolled around she went to the kitchenette to rest out of sight. As she grabbed an Ensure for her snack and made to sit down she felt the ground come up to meet her.

She came to in Bruce's arms, a bright light in her eyes, "Darcy you fainted and you hit your head. Tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

She concentrated. It looked like four, but she guessed two. Tony was glaring at her and Jane was crying.

"I personally blame gravity. Perhaps there was a gravitational well created just right here in the kitchen?"

"I have no readings indicating such an event."

"Traitor." she mumbled.

"How much do you weigh Darcy?" asked Bruce.

"Um dunno."

"Miss Lewis weighs 115 lbs, four weeks ago she weighed 135."

"That is just not fair." When had JARVIS decided to betray her? And what could she do to appease an AI?

"You haven't gained all your weight back, your blood pressure is erratic, you're not well. I don't know who your nurse is but you can't come back to work until I clear you." He'd sat her down on the couch. "Did you stop taking your painkillers?"

"Yeah the night I was discharged."

"Damn it Darcy!" Jane was genuinely angry.

"What? I didn't want to get addicted!"

"OK here's what we're going to do. You'll take your painkillers only a low dosage gain back like five pounds and I'll let you come back to work for the full day when you do." Bruce didn't seem disappointed just stiff but that might be because he had impeccable bedside manners. Tony wouldn't stop glaring at her and at some point Steve had arrived.

"Why is Darcy laying down on the couch?"

"She fainted!" Jane was sounding a little shrill.

"Do you want me to take her back to Jane's apartment?" Jane nodded, Bruce gave the ok and no one paid attention when Darcy shook her head. Tony whispered something to Steve and left. Darcy felt like an idiot and cursed her stupid injuries. Steve tried to carry her but she slapped his hands away.

"I can walk thank you very much." he was definitely frowning, but with his full lips it looked like a pout. That irritated her to no end. "Sorry I just... Hate being useless, stuck in bed and now for the first time in my whole life gaining weight is like hard."

"I didn't always look like this you know."

"I uh didn't have clearance to read like any of your file." ok she did but she didn't think it was polite to be all_ I totally would have dated pre-serum Steve you were/are so adorable! _Because harboring a crush is hard to do when you're trying to be professional and be friends.

He took a deep breath and told her the main details. It kept her distracted as he offered her his arm and she clung to it. She grabbed the painkillers from her room and Steve sat her down on the couch, sitting across from her on an ottoman. It was close and she could see the faint blush on his cheeks, she ordered herself not to swoon. Times like these it was impossible to forget what Steve looked like though, and he still had trouble looking at her chest. Which looked even bigger now that she'd lost so much weight and she was wearing a bra, no sports bra for once (and damn she'd forgotten how much underwires hurt, but that might be the injury) or bandages to flatten her. Even with all her layers he seemed unable to look below her chin this close, well at least she could still make him uncomfortable.

"So you weren't always this like, built?" Playing dumb was underrated, see right now? checking him out? Totally acceptable.

"Ah no." More blushing! But seriously though. He looked so wistful and shy, lost and not at all like the leader she knew he was. No more teasing he didn't deserve it.

"I'm sorry about the deep freeze." Darcy was sincere now and she didn't even bother hiding tear-filled eyes, reached for his hand instinctively and squeezed gently. Steve looked startled and she let go. "I'm honored that you would tell me." _and completely mortified! Blame the meds!_

He took a moment to say anything. "You're easy to talk to Darcy. I feel like I could tell you anything." he looked down embarrassed. "I'm not used to talking this much to dames, girls, uh, women." Now he was just a shocking shade of red. "But I seem to talk to you a lot."

"I'm glad because you've seen me in the hospital, without makeup and looking half dead." now she was embarrassed.

"I've seen you shot and bleeding." he said softly. He held her hand and Darcy bit her lip. "How about I order us some real food and we watch some more I Love Lucy?" Work might have been a bust but getting this personal with Captain America was worth it. How many people could say they were friends with a superhero? _Note to self: inquire as to the girlfriend status again. _

Darcy woke up on the couch alone. The tv was off and there was a little note on the remote.

_Sorry for leaving, didn't want to wake you. I got called away. I'll come by after I get back.  
-Steve_

Better still to be friends with Steve Rogers, literally the nicest guy Darcy had ever met.

Unfortunately the team wouldn't return for six days. Darcy got the extra week of half-days to relax and recuperate, after lunchtime ensconced in the lab on the couch in the kitchenette because technically she wasn't allowed to be working in the lab for the full day. And she started learning everything she possibly could about Stark Industries current projects, the media climate about SI and finally reviewing all the projects Tony was working on. (If she happened to hack into Pepper's schedule it was completely not her fault that JARVIS didn't keep her out). Darcy even spent some time hanging out with Jane in the lab after hours when she was actually allowed in (yet another loophole JARVIS had conveniently overlooked: not during working hours=totally allowed in!)

By the time the team returned Darcy was feeling more like herself and had gained back five pounds and was working the full day.

By then the Darcy had moved most of her crap out of Jane's apartment and was ready to work as long as Jane and Tony. She wasn't however prepared for life at the Tower when superheros got bored.

She started off small. Sunday brunch her and Jane cooking, or rather Darcy was cooking and Jane was keeping her company. She even conned the entire team into showing up by promising Tony not to tell Pepper Team Science had moved into the Super Secret Hero Lab until he deemed it wise to tell her. (Darcy suspected Tony had merely been lonely but the big issue is how to explain ten million dollars worth of renovations to the garage/secret labs area.) Darcy could tell Tony missed Pepper but she didn't want to bring it up.

Even Steve showed up, late (he lived in Brooklyn after all) but with an appetite. By then Clint and Bruce were whipping up more pancakes and omelettes. Pietro had long since chopped up all the fruits and Natasha was serving mimosas, bellinis, screwdrivers, Irish coffees and lots of other drinks Darcy was not supposed to be tasting and Jane kept taking away from her. Steve acted all annoyed that the "Assemble" order had been issued for breakfast ("Its BRUNCH" everyone corrected) but then Darcy had shoved a plate of pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon at him. He quieted down and ate gratefully.

As Darcy looked around the kitchen every single team member eating, cooking or talking it occurred to her that she'd had her mission all wrong. She was here to be the last line of defense but also she thought of what Coulson had done as a Liaison to the Avengers. He'd assembled them sure but in planning for her position as assistant he'd also shared the burden of keeping them together.

Steve was settled next to her at the counter where she was perched, disturbing her reverie, "Thanks for breakfast."

"No problem, besides they'd taken over cooking."

"You have a gift you know."

"Ohhh gifts! I love gifts." She rubbed her hands together and waggled her eyebrows.

"You know what I mean." he laughed indulgently. "You can bring them together make them get along, keep them happy. You're a good leader."

Darcy knew she was blushing and cursed that she'd still not mastered that particular reaction to compliments.

"Oh its nothing." she waved it off as she loaded the dishwasher.

"It is something Darcy. I used to know someone who had your flair for making others feel at ease." He looked away. "Maybe we should add Sunday brunch to Thursday Movie Nights."

"Deal!" Darcy smiled triumphantly.

Just then footsteps caught Darcy's attention.

"Is there anything left for me?" a sweet voice asked before emerging from the hallway.

Tony turned as if controlled by another force. "Pepper!" He kissed her and she hugged him laughing. Darcy had the distinct urge to clap and squeal with delight, she settled for grinning like fool. Everyone else smiled and didn't bother to hide their delight as they watched the couple.

"Hey Tony why don't you show Pepper what's left of brunch?" prompted Darcy.

"Nope nothing to eat here I'll have to go find food to feed her. Privately."

"Mimosa?" said Natasha handing her one.

"Omelette?" offered Clint manning the skillet again. "or pancakes?"

"Fruit?" suggested Pietro scooping some fruit into a crystal bowl. Tony just scowled. It could have been rehearsed they were so smooth, typical superheros.

As Pepper sat down ambushed with food, Darcy looked on happily, noting how Tony never quite stopped touching her.

"Did you plan that?" asked Steve quietly.

Darcy just smiled.

* * *

A/N: I needed to write some Pepper/Tony moments! I couldn't help it :)

Also look out for the sequel which should be up this week!


End file.
